


While You Weren't Looking

by HannahTheScribe



Series: I’ll Give You [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Adult Content, Age Difference, Alternative Lifestyles, Alternative Sexuality, Anorexia, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Authority Figures, BDSM, BDSM Scene, Bisexual Character of Color, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Female Character of Color, Bisexuality, Bondage and Discipline, Bottoming, Character(s) of Color, Companion Piece, Conditioning, Consensual Kink, Consensual Non-Consent, Consensual Sex, Control, Dissociation, Dom/sub, Dominance, Drabble Collection, Drama, Eating Disorders, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Female Character of Color, Female Characters, Female Friendship, Female Protagonist, Female Relationships, Female-Centric, Ficlet Collection, Food Issues, Friendship, Gaslighting, Heavy BDSM, Human Trafficking, Insomnia, Kinks, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Female Character, LGBTQ Female Character of Color, LGBTQ Jewish Character(s), LGBTQ Themes, Lesbian Character, Love, Married Characters, Married Couple, Married Life, Masochism, Master/Pet, Master/Servant, Master/Slave, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares, No Lesbians Die, No Safeword, Not Suitable/Safe For Work, One Shot Collection, Ownership, POV Female Character, POV Queer Character, POV Third Person, Panic Attacks, Past Tense, Platonic Female/Female Relationships, Platonic Life Partners, Platonic Relationships, Polyamory, Porn, Possessive Behavior, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Power Dynamics, Power Exchange, Power Imbalance, Protectiveness, Queer Character, Queer Culture, Queer Families, Queer Friendly, Queer Themes, Queerplatonic Relationships, Realistic, Romance, Romantic Friendship, S&M, Sadism, Secret Organizations, Self-Harm, Service, Service Kink, Service Submission, Sex, Sexual Content, Sexual Slavery, Slave Trade, Slavery, Smut, Social Anxiety, Strong Female Characters, Submission, Submissive Character, Topping, Total Power Exchange, Training, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Useless Lesbians, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:54:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 22,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25808440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HannahTheScribe/pseuds/HannahTheScribe
Summary: Short story collection, companion of theI'll Give Youseries.Or, the author is an insomniac who keeps coming up with Vibes that don't go anywhere else at 2 AM.
Relationships: Ezri Roderick/Clara Chen, Ezri Roderick/Lalia Chalmers, Jen Lundqvist/Clara Chen
Series: I’ll Give You [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867054
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	1. Almost: Jen/Clara, Chapter 16 (Book 1)

**Author's Note:**

> Want to take the survey and share your opinions about this series? Find the survey [here](https://forms.gle/h2pho3vavpzNT1jr5).
> 
> Want a physical copy or ebook? Find Book One and The First IGY Companion on [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Hannah-The-Scribe/e/B08NPX9Q4L). Also, [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55955242-i-ll-give-you-everything-i-am). Also find Book One on [Barnes and Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ill-give-you-everything-i-am-hannah-the-scribe/1138275367). 
> 
> Want fun extras like fonts and audio? Check [here](https://hannahthescribe.com/igy/).
> 
> Want more, and have something in mind? Request short stories for this series [here](https://hannahthescribe.com/igy-requests/).
> 
> Want more? Find the whole series on [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867054) along with my [other works](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034871).
> 
> Want the reality? Read my BDSM nonfiction on [Service Slave Secrets](http://www.serviceslavesecrets.com/) or [FetLife](https://fetlife.com/users/7113554/posts/5648128).
> 
> Want a taste of the trainee life? Find my BDSM education classes [here](https://serviceslavesecrets.com/events/).

“Ready?” Jen asked cheerfully.

“About,” said Clara. “Did you want to tie these some specific way?” She held up the loose ends of the ribbons on her dress, loosely tied behind her neck for now.

“Mm, come over here.” Clara knelt in front of her, facing away from her, held her hair out of the way; Jen untied what she’d done and redid it. Now they wove around her neck and collar in a simple but decorative pattern. “Better,” Jen said, tracing the skin inside one of the shapes the ribbons created. “My turn.”

Clara turned and laced up the boots Jen wore dutifully. Jen smiled at her, pet her hair while she did, and gave the back of her head a slight nudge when she was done; Clara took the cue and pressed a light kiss to each of the boots and Jen again smiled, said, “You can do better than that.”

So she did. Took her time, mouthed at the leather and offered rapid flicks of her tongue, waited until Jen nudged her to move to the other one.

Jen pulled her back by the hair. “You like that?” She prodded at Clara’s knee with her foot until Clara shifted and opened her legs, let Jen prod her between them.

She whimpered; the firm, widespread pressure was almost painful but definitely finding her aroused. Her eyes flitted to the door; their friends would be here any minute…

“Answer me, Clara.”

“Yes, Mistress,” she admitted, squirming against the pressure and friction.

“Show me.” She pulled her into a slightly different position. “Come and hump my leg like a little bitch.”

Clara hung her head and did as told, shifted to steady herself, rocked against her and it just wasn’t quite _enough_ —enough to make her want more and never for her to feel like she had gotten it; Jen shifted; she shifted; oh, that was it—

Wetness only increased her sensitivity, let her folds part enough she could get the most sensitive spots more direct stimulation; she cried out in pleasure and frustration and moved faster, just starting to feel tired from the motions and not caring.

“Look at me,” Jen growled, pulling her head back with a hand fisted in her hair, slapped her with the other one while she was held still. “That’s better, isn’t it? You like being where you belong? Acting like what you are? No more pretty little kisses, just showing me how much you’d rather be licking my boots and humping my leg than pretending to be a person?”

Clara whimpered.

“Answer me.”

“Yes, Mistress.” Shaky breath. "I—I like showing you… that I’d rather… do this.”

Jen laughed. “I thought so,” she said, fingertips at Clara’s throat, pressing enough to feel the effects, but barely. She, too, glanced at the door. “You’d like it if they got here now, wouldn’t you? Let them see you like this?”

“Please…”

“Please, what?”

“Please, Mistress, may I—may I come? Please?”

“You can beg better than that.”

“Please, fuck, I need it, please, Mistress—”

“Come.” The pressure from her fingers grew.

Clara did, crying out—Jen released her grip at her throat just before the orgasm started to fade; the rush of oxygen intensified the rest of it. She panted and laid her cheek against Jen’s thigh after; the orgasm had not been a particularly strong one, but release nonetheless. Settled, still nestled around Jen’s leg. “Thank you, Mistress.”

Jen laughed. “You’re very welcome.”

The doorbell rang. Lucky they rang the bell, maybe. “You should get that,” said Jen, kicking Clara off of her. “Too bad they didn’t get here a minute earlier.”


	2. Above All Else: Jen/Clara, Backstory

Ezri kept the proverbial leash short and thus never had to tug on it. While it had become mind numbing for Clara at some point to never be allowed past that short chain, it was also calm.

Her proverbial leash with Jen was much longer, which had her keep her sanity, but Jen yanked on it frequently enough to remind her it was there, which made her have the realization of it over and over again.

Asher was having an s-type’s gathering on Friday and when she brought it up to Jen, she realized she phrased it as a request for permission to go. She didn’t need permission to go anywhere—Jen had veto power, and she had to tell her where she was, but it wasn’t required in advance. The phrasing was a little submissive but it was intended more like a considerate notification of her plans.

“No,” said Jen.

Clara had opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it. “No?” she asked cautiously, like she hadn’t heard the word before.

“You may not,” Jen rephrased, still more absorbed in whatever she was doing on the computer than looking at Clara.

“I—” She had already accepted she wasn’t going, if reluctantly; she wasn’t really arguing, just trying to figure out where this answer came from. They had no plans on Friday and Asher was a good friend. She did like, now and then, to see certain people at events where they were allowed to speak freely. And she couldn’t think of why Jen would say no. “May—I ask why, Mistress?” That was phrased a lot more deliberately than the original question.

“Because I don’t want you to go.”

 _Well, thank you, Captain Obvious,_ she thought, and bit her lip.

“Isn’t that enough of an answer?”

Oddly, the question was the answer she’d been looking for. The _I just don’t want you to—and that’s enough of a reason._ This was a yank on that leash. Jen had no issues with Asher or plans for Friday—just an opportunity to say no and see if Clara pulled back.

“Yes, Mistress,” she said softly, then waited a moment, then left.

She paced a little—she didn’t like that this was the thing Jen had decided to say no to. She managed to even blow it out of proportion mentally, not catching how stupid it sounded for another few minutes—a toxic behavior of keeping her from talking to other people on the right side of the slash without monitoring.

She was sure that was part of the idea—it had to be something she even _might_ tug back on, which she still wasn’t going to. She didn’t have to like it. In the long run, that leash mattered far more than Asher’s gathering, and she knew that this opportunity had been chosen to prove a point, not out of any desire to isolate her—not that one Friday afternoon would matter.

She found enough neutrality to text Asher that she couldn’t go, opting to not tell him why, lest it lead to complaining she didn’t want to do. She realized, as the wave of emotion that came with that leash yank settled, that the aftermath left her calmer than before, the acceptance of the bigger picture.

Jen noted that evening that she seemed very subdued.


	3. I Need Her: Ezri+Jen, Backstory

Ezri looked at the phone suspiciously as she picked it up. It was a bit late for a social call, but she was answering, so maybe it wasn’t. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Jen said, and something sounded off.

“Hey.”

Quiet.

“Something… wrong?”

“I… didn’t know who else to call. I’ve… never been very good at friends. Like, call at 9 PM friends.”

"You're not sober, are you?"

"No," Jen laughed.

“Okay. So, tell me what you didn’t know who to call about.” She liked Jen, really—they didn’t know each other very well in the grand scheme of things, but Ezri wasn’t sure whom she'd call slightly late and slightly drunk either. Probably Clara. Maybe Jen. Maybe Ezri was bad at certain types of friends, too. Maybe they deserved each other.

“I need her,” Jen said quietly; “Clara.”

“I… have a lot of paperwork and money that says you _have_ her.” That was logistics and a joke, though. What made her know Jen _had_ Clara was the way Clara obviously worshipped her and spoke of her like she put the stars in the sky.

“No; no, you don’t get it; I don’t… _need_ people.”

“Ah.”

“Like, a lot of people say things, right—unconditional love, CNC, whatever you wanna call it—”

Ezri laughed; that sure was a comparison.

“—But like, the, ‘I love you no matter what,’ people say it, and then Clara just… does.”

“Love you unconditionally?”

“Yeah. And I didn’t know people— _did_ that. Without conditions. Without limits. She just—whatever I do—she stays and stays and stays.”

“And your worry is…?”

“What—if something happened to her—what do I _do_?” Pause. “I don’t know if you’re… the one to call about this.”

“No, it’s—I dunno. Queer culture. You’re fine,” she laughed. “She’s a healthy thirty something. I think her biggest risk factor is you and your… interests.”

Jen laughed. “Yeah, there’s that. But that’s one thing I need her for, isn’t it?”


	4. Now Find Some Air to Breathe: Jen/Clara, Backstory

They hadn’t approached cruising altitude yet when Jen’s light grasp on Clara’s hand became a death grip at the first dip of turbulence.

Clara laughed softly, looking at her in realization. “You’re afraid of heights.” 

“Yes,” Jen said quietly, not looking at her, trying to release the breath she’d been holding with the word. “Don’t you dare fucking say… whatever.” 

“Hey,” Clara said gently, still smiling a little, leaning on her shoulder. “I’ve got you.” She squeezed her hand.

Thinking about it now, Jen had been tense all morning. She’d even suggested, weeks before, driving to the convention, with a one way trip that would have lasted longer than the event itself. Clara had dissuaded her easily of the time consuming notion.

Today, she’d been terse and irritable as they got ready to leave, grumbling that TSA better not make a fuss about Clara’s collar, let alone anything questionable in their bags to be sold at the kink convention (which TSA didn’t), pacing at the gate and complaining that they had been waiting too long half an hour before they were due to hear any announcements. It had seemed strangely generous when she told Clara to take the window seat, clearly an order and not an offer.

Now, the death grip on her hand.

“I don’t like being afraid of things.” 

“Most people don’t make a hobby of it. You’re just confused because you spend too much time with me.” 

It at least got Jen to smile a little, actually look at her for a moment.

“Is it heights, or falling?” 

“Heights. I think I have a healthy fear of plummeting to my death, but just the height thing is—everything gets so small. I think it's existential. Like, our whole lives are down there.” She gestured at the window without looking at it.

“I think mine is here.” 

Jen looked at her again, smiled again, squeezed her hand. “Yes, but as you said, you’re an anomaly.” 


	5. Grace: Ezri/Clara, Backstory

“Clara.”

Her hand tightened on the doorknob to Ezri’s office. She thought, for a moment, of turning it and opening the door and leaving. Even indulging in slamming it behind her. She forced herself to let go of it as if she had to pry her own fingers open. Hid the fist that replaced the grip behind her back with her other hand as she turned. The, “Yes, ma’am?” came out almost innocent.

“Try that again.” 

Of course. She had known the order was coming the moment the first exit curtsy was done. Tried to pretend that if she fled in time, she could avoid the _try that again. One more time. You can do better._ And maybe avoid giving Ezri the murderous look and be spared the lecture.

She managed to avoid Ezri’s gaze altogether and tried it again.

“Good girl. You may go.” 

She left without further incident, closing the door a little loudly but not so much Ezri pursued her. Being Ezri’s favorite trainee had its downsides, as much as she had longed for it. The nitpicking, for one. Perfection was surely someone’s kink, but it wasn’t hers. She liked it on occasion, and she could even manage day to day, but she had no enjoyment of it when it was this constant and Ezri knew it.

The only thing was, it was Ezri’s form of love, and for that, she was grateful. She did notice the little things Ezri let slip with the others and was equally uncomfortable with the thought of going back to that position, easier though it might be; it would feel like being given up on.

Ezri thought she could do this. Clara didn’t want to prove her wrong, whether she liked it or not. 


	6. Once Upon a Summer's Day: Jen/Clara, Backstory

The woods were beautiful, a pretty getaway; the air was clean and refreshing and pine scented, the ground a little uneven but not dangerous, hand in hand. The pond they circled was as clear and blue as the sky.

Clara had always liked Ezri’s parents’ place, and the large wooded area surrounding it that was theirs alone. This midsummer escape from the heat was a visit to them, a reunion of sorts—Ezri and her sister and brother, his wife and kids, Clara and her siblings and Jen—and it had many perks.

And, away from everyone else, her and Jen had made plenty of nice memories in these woods over the years.

Her back hit a nearby tree, the sudden kiss deep and dizzying, but maybe that was the building pressure of Jen’s fingers at her throat. Sharp tug at her hair from Jen’s other hand. She sighed contentedly with what little air she had.

More air came when Jen released her, pulling her towards the waterline by the collar. When she realized what was happening, she stopped moving, and Jen grabbed her arm and pressed hard on a spot that knocked the air back out of her lungs with pain. She wasn’t the pressure points expert; Jen was; but she knew an effective use when she felt it. “Fuck, fuck—okay—I’ll—fuck.”

“You’ll behave?”

“Yes, Mistress—fuck—please—”

Jen released her.

She didn’t struggle again, pulled to her knees at the edge of the water, Jen producing the restraints she’d dangled tauntingly in front of her as they got ready for their walk behind closed doors. She bound Clara’s hands behind her back, the thin leather cuffs aching and painful to pull against.

Jen shoved her head under the water with a fist tight in Clara’s hair; Clara squirmed and thrashed and pushed back against her uselessly.

_One, two, three…_

She knew what Clara could take, counted off the high end of the range mentally while ignoring Clara’s muffled cries, kept an eye out for company. Pulled her back up, spluttering and gasping.

“Fuck, it’s cold,” was what she got out first.

Jen laughed, grip on her hair loosening for a moment. “I know, darling.” Shoved her back under in a moment, a few seconds shorter.

She gave her a bit longer to breathe when she pulled her up again, let go for a moment. Gasps became resigned whimpers.

One more time. Up.

“Please,” Clara gasped when Jen reached for her again. “I need—” panting “—please.” A few tears on her cheeks, fear and pain making her lean towards her instinctually, sopping wet hair on her shoulder.

Jen pet her hair soothingly. “One more,” she told her.

Clara closed her eyes and nodded. Her chest ached, throbbing.

With that, Jen shoved her under one more time. Clara didn’t start to struggle until the last few seconds, the total length about matching the first one.

“There you go,” said Jen as she caught her breath one last time, laying her head in Jen’s lap tiredly. “Don’t pass out on me now.”

“Okay,” said Clara after a few more seconds. “Okay.” She found it in her to sit up.

“See, all better now.” Her eyes ran over her. “We’ll just say you went swimming. And got some on me.”

“Head first?” she asked, suddenly giggly.

“You’re right.” She splashed a large amount of water at her. Clara gasped from the cold. Jen could see the flash of the urge to do it back, gave her a look that said very plainly, _I dare you._ Clara did not dare.

Jen unbound her, stood and pulled her up with her. Tucked the restraints in a pocket but produced Clara's leash and clipped that to her collar, led her by it in peaceful silence until they were a bit too close to the house for comfort, and Jen unclipped the leash, stuck it in another pocket, kissed her cheek.

Clara smiled. She did always like these trips.


	7. One More Time For Old Times' Sake: Ezri/Clara, Backstory

The Ownership contract sat on the breakfast nook table between them unsigned, a pen next to it that neither of them was willing to be the first to touch. They both avoided looking at it, and at each other.

They’d spent weeks slowly drafting it in modifications to the consideration contract. And today, the date it was to be signed on, it sat on the table between them.

They hadn’t said they were going to sign it in so many words—that was just the standing assumption of consideration until said otherwise. They hadn’t said otherwise. They’d rather avoided talking about it at all.

“Maybe we should have some more coffee,” said Clara with shaky false cheerfulness, standing and heading towards the kitchen.

“Clara,” Ezri sighed.

She held the edge of the island in a white knuckled grip, leant on it. “Fuck,” she mumbled, hair falling her in face, which at least meant she didn’t have to look at Ezri. She felt sick.

“Come and sit.”

She didn’t remember deciding to obey; she was just at the table again, staring at the contract she knew it would be unfair to sign. She didn’t know how they’d gotten this far without saying that—then again, the instinct that had her at the table before any thought crossed her mind was exactly how.

Maybe that was enough. Maybe she could learn, eventually, to reduce everything else down to that—to be what Ezri wanted, and to be happy with it. She could be that now. But she couldn’t enjoy it for long. She had _needs_ for a level of darkness Ezri was not willing to reach, needs not getting met in ways that were messy to define; Ezri needed a dynamic too tight for the flux and fluidity and ebb and flow and playing off each other that Clara craved.

“You don’t want to sign it,” Ezri said gently, like it wasn’t obvious.

“Do _you?”_ If Ezri had signed it, Clara would’ve picked up the pen. Instinct would’ve kicked in. She wasn’t willing to be the one who made the case for it being a good idea. But if Ezri had quietly signed it, if she’d tried to convince her—she would’ve relented.

She didn’t blame her for not signing it.

“No,” said Ezri. “I don’t.”

Clara swallowed. “So what do we do?”

“What we probably should’ve stuck to in the beginning,” said Ezri, with a fond stroke of her cheek. Clara couldn’t look at her. “Find you someone else.”

“I love you,” Clara said, and she did. But it wasn’t the love Ezri wanted. It wasn’t the love Clara wanted to give an Owner.

“I know,” said Ezri, because that was Clara’s first concern. Her second, “And I love you. And I think we’ve both already tried our best to make that be enough.”

“So what now? I mean—someone else. I know. But what… else. Until then. And how—how do you want to do that.”

“Well,” said Ezri. “I am open to some options. My first suggestion would be we essentially go back to square one. You’re here as a graduated trainee. I am finding you an Owner. We should probably cut anything more than a training relationship—an actual one, admittedly not what we had—or else we’ll just… drag this out.”

Clara nodded. They couldn’t quite just go back to square one, but she understood the intention. “So you’re my trainer, I graduated, we’re in the transition period of you selling me.”

“Yes,” said Ezri. If she caught the slight emphasis on _selling,_ she didn’t note it.

“Okay.” Deep breath that didn’t quite reach her lungs. “How do you want… okay. Finding me someone else.” She didn’t need the wording twice. “In the normal way?”

“Roughly.” Ezri paused, her hand settling over where Clara’s was drumming nervously at the table. “I know, we can’t actually go back to square one. I know you too well. I care too much. That’ll affect how that search goes. Your file was complete when we began the consideration contract and I think it's still basically accurate now; I’ll make some minor adjustments. If there’s anything you want to change, you can look at it again.”

Clara nodded. She hadn’t been about to cry, until Ezri was holding her hand. Barely holding. Resting her own hand on, running her thumb over the back of it. Fuck, this wasn’t how… this was supposed to go. She didn’t know what to call it. Break up sounded weird. They hadn’t officially been in a relationship; they were considering one—and it wasn’t… the sort of thing that ended in a break up. Nor was this release or dismissal; it wasn’t official enough; it wasn’t one sided. She was leaving Ezri as much as Ezri was leaving her, but they weren’t on equal ground yet. They probably never would be; whether or not they were compatible to do this every minute together, this was who they were. If Ezri commanded, and she would, Clara would obey.

“Not tonight,” she said. “I don’t want to deal with it tonight.”

“Clara…” She said her name like correction was coming, but faltered.

Clara, looking defeated, knelt next to her and rested her head in Ezri's lap, who sighed and stroked her hair. “Tomorrow,” she said. “We should deal with this tomorrow.”

Ezri looked at her. “We have to face it eventually.”

“Tomorrow,” Clara repeated.

“Tomorrow,” Ezri said, and pulled Clara up to her and the kiss was _I’m sorry_ and guilt and regret and longing and wrong, and it didn’t really manage to ruin the sex they said they wouldn’t have, anyway.

In the end, Ezri always broke the rules for Clara.


	8. Admit It (Part 1): Ezri/Clara, Chapter 13 (Book 1)

“You wanted to see me?” Clara leant on Ezri’s office doorway with a playful smirk. 

Ezri smiled. “Indeed. Shut that.” She gestured at the door. 

Clara did, curious. 

“I wanted your thoughts on this,” Ezri said, and unlocked a desk drawer, pulled something out of it, held it out. 

Clara examined it, though realized what it was fast enough she didn’t touch it, just looked. The gray byzantine chain, lock, keyhole facing the back, the side facing her bearing the network symbol and _Lalia_ in a simple but pretty script. “You don’t want my opinion on the collar,” Clara told her, with lethal gentleness. “You want my opinion on the fact you already have it.” 

“Yes,” Ezri admitted. 

Clara bit her lip. “It’s beautiful. She’ll love it.” She sighed. “She’s everything you’ve ever wanted, isn’t she?” 

“Yes.” That was even more obvious but sounded even more like a confession. 

“When did you get this?” 

“It was on order six weeks ago.” 

They had met eight weeks ago. 

“Well,” said Clara, because it had to be said, “not like I can talk.” 

“Married and collared at seven days.” Ezri closed the little box the collar was in, set it back in the drawer, locked it. Set the key in a different drawer. 

“At least we admitted we already knew.” She didn’t take back the words but didn’t like the slightly wounded look. She tempered the sentence with a light kiss on the cheek. “I’m happy for you. Both of you.” 

“Do you think… she’ll say yes?” 

“Oh, fuck, come on. She’s already said yes. She’s told you yes a thousand times. Whether you like it or not—you already own her.” Quieter, “It’s in her eyes. She worships you.” 

And, years ago, Ezri had known—well before the end of that week— _Jen already owns you._ Whatever Ezri’s paperwork or the county clerk’s office or FetLife said— _she already owns you. It’s in your eyes._ “Okay,” she relented now. 

“Let yourself be happy, okay? You were always very good at _no._ Even to yourself. Maybe learn when to admit _yes_.” Wrapped her arms loosely around her neck, Ezri’s arms at her waist, the embrace casual and familiar. Ezri had told her _no_ a thousand times even when they both wanted it, and in the end, maybe Clara should’ve listened, and in the end, maybe it didn’t matter. 

“Okay.” 


	9. Admit It (Part 2): Ezri/Clara, Backstory

The others were long asleep.

Clara was tired.

Her eyes didn’t want to focus; her limbs felt heavy. Ezri’s favoritism came with even higher standards, and the hatred of most of the other trainees. Up last, trying to meet those standards, she ended up with the chores delegated to whoever was awake the latest.

And now, even when she could have finally gone to bed, she found Ezri in her office and knelt in front of her. A quiet, private moment after a long, chaotic day.

This final check in they had was not ritual or protocol, just a habit formed by wanting a minute alone without their mutual disappearance noted. Often, little happened. They touched in the most innocent ways. Punishment happened with strange frequency, Ezri checking her work and finding fault. She wasn’t required to come here at night; if she didn’t, it was likely Ezri wouldn’t have checked, wouldn’t have found fault. Yet, she came anyway. The cane hurt and she didn’t like facing her flaws, but she felt more gratitude and love than pain in the end. She was very aware that it was perhaps the most key part of being Ezri’s favorite.

Ezri pet her hair for a moment tonight, then stood, and paced around the house, and Clara followed her dutifully, looking at every checkpoint one more time as Ezri would see it, still finding nothing out of place. Back in Ezri’s office, all she said was, “You look exhausted,” caressing Clara’s cheek.

Clara shrugged, not sure what to say to that. To agree was possibly to complain and to disagree was to argue. They had woken at about the same time, but Clara’d had the busier day, including being in charge of overseeing the preparations for meals, which made the others resent her more.

Ezri had admitted to her, in one of her more open moments, that she had low hopes for the others, though she cited that entry training was not quite what she thought and perhaps that was in part her own failure. She’d managed to sell most of them, though. Now, there were just the three of the original seven.

“Tell me what’s on your mind,” said Ezri now.

The same thing that was always on her mind when she was this close to Ezri. _Why won’t you admit you want this?_

The fact was, if Ezri’d wanted to, she could’ve sold Clara by now. 

“I’m just tired. Like you said.” 

Ezri didn’t buy it. Her touch was gentle, but nudging her into looking up at her. Clara did. “You may speak freely,” Ezri reminded her.

So she said it. “Why won’t you admit you want this?” 

Ezri closed her eyes. “Go to bed, Clara.” 

“No.” Emboldened by the utter nonresponse, she said, “You’ve been avoiding it. You can’t deny you do. I know you do. Why won’t you say it?” 

“Clara—”

“The others already hate me. It wouldn’t change anything with them. You’re not trying to sell me. You treat me more and more like I’m—” she sighed “—something that’s not what the others are.” She lost her nerve. Went quiet. Ezri watched her as she lowered her head and avoided her gaze.

“It would be… irresponsible. You don’t want this long term. You’ve said that. So all it would do is complicate your training.” 

“But you won’t sell me.” 

“I will. I just haven’t been approached and haven’t prioritized finding someone.” 

Quiet. Then, “Maybe I’ve changed my mind.” 

Ezri sighed. “You don’t want this, Clara. You know that. I know you’ve—we’ve... become attached. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s not that I don’t—” she cut herself off. “I want you to be happy. And this isn’t the dynamic you want. You’re right, it’s unfair of me to treat you differently than the others and not prioritize selling you. But… that doesn’t change what you want.” 

“Then what do _you_ want?” Shifted to kneeling up in front of her, grasping her hands in her lap.

 _You. I like to pretend we could make it work, too._ “I… want you to be happy.” 

And she did. God, that was exactly why she couldn’t do this—because if she asked, Clara would say yes, and she would be miserable. Pretending could only take them so far. But it was hard to resist. Clara wore the role Ezri wanted from her beautifully—but the longer she was in it, the more she hated it. There was resentment behind every, “ _Yes, ma’am_ ,” every curtsy, every kneeling position, every service she provided. It was building and building and soon it would overpower the love and trust and respect between them. 

“You have needs—reasonable needs—that I won’t meet,” Ezri reminded her. “And I have needs that you don’t want to fill. And we both deserve to get what we need. From other people. It’s not—” slightly shaky breath “—yes, I care for you a great deal. But that’s not enough. And it’s not your fault. You’re kind and you’re clever and your talent and passion is obvious. But I need structure, and you need ebb and flow and push and pull, and that’s fine, but it’s not—for me. And I have my limits on what I’ll do, and you need a real sadist. Don’t you see all that?” Her tone was pleading. 

Clara considered. “Tell me you don’t want this,” she said softly.

“Clara—” 

“—No,” she cut her off, sharper. “Forget the rest of it. Go back to where we started. Not should we or will we or could we—admit you want this. Or tell me I’m wrong.” 

Ezri couldn’t look at her, looked at where Clara’s hands were in hers. She was very close. Ezri leant her forehead on hers. “I love you,” she said, as if a slightly different confession would do. “But I don’t want any possible version of this.” 

Clara kissed her and Ezri let her, kissed her back, a long, slow kiss, her fingers at Clara’s cheek, the insatiable desire between them. She drew back from her, but barely, their faces nuzzled together. Kept her eyes closed. “Go to bed, Clara,” she said again. “Please.” 

Clara gave in, stood; Ezri’s eyes followed her. She offered a slightly too low curtsy and then looked at her for a long moment, on the edge of tears, restrained, but barely, the bitter look of having always been the strong one. “If you ever get your shit together enough to be honest with yourself, let me know, ma’am,” she said, and slammed the door loudly enough to wake everyone on her way out.


	10. Storytime: Ezri, Backstory

Daphne, aged nine, flopped onto Ezri’s bed. 

Ezri, aged eleven, asked, “Can I help you?” 

“Tell me a story.” 

“I don’t know any stories,” said Ezri, like any other time she mostly wanted Daphne to leave her alone to do homework. 

“Ezzeee,” Daphne whined, “you know lots of stories.” 

Ezri gave her the over the top of the glasses look she had all but trademarked since she got the glasses that summer. “I’ve never even heard of stories. What’s a story?” 

“Like, about pirates and wizards and aliens and adventures~!” 

“Pirates and wizards and aliens? Sounds exciting.” 

Daphne pouted. She didn’t like when her brother—sister?—played stupid. Everyone knew Ezri was the smartest, even though Joseph was the oldest. But Daphne made the best drawings of the three siblings. 

“Well,” Ezri relented slowly, “I don’t know much about wizards or aliens, but I’ll tell you something about pirates, and where this ‘story’ thing came from.” 

Daphne sat up as Ezri wove her a tale about the origins of storytelling, bored pirates below deck in a storm, with a flair for the theatric. 

Daphne grinned. If she flopped on her middle brother’s—sister’s—bed and asked, she always got a story in the end.


	11. Anything: Jen/Clara, Backstory

“Why are you so bothered? Just leave it be.”

“Because when I act like a child you hit me, and when you act like a child _I_ apologize,” Clara snapped at her. “I can’t win.”

Long night. Stupid bickering.

“You don’t have to win,” Jen told her.

She’d been in a dark mood all day, insisting at every minor inconvenience that Clara just didn’t care, that she wasn’t paying attention to her, that she wasn’t thinking of her. And when she got like that, Clara’s job was to bear it until the arbitrary mood passed with a bit of extra sleep or extra aggressive sex. Tonight she’d done a poor job of it.

“You keep telling me that I don’t care but I’ve spent the whole day trying to fix your problems. You complain that the dishes aren’t done so I do them, and then you complain that I wasn’t spending time with you while you were sulking upstairs. What do you want from me?”

Jen went to leave.

“Hey.” Clara grabbed her arm, an impulse, and she knew it was a bad idea well before her back hit the wall. She cringed. “Come on,” she said, softer. “I’d do anything for you. I just need to know what you want. You know that.”

Jen fidgeted with the lock on Clara’s collar. “Anything?”

It was a dangerous statement with her on a good day. And she could recognize the sadist in her perking up. She wanted to say it was in her eyes, but more likely it was a subtle set of body language she hadn’t placed. “Anything. I swear. Name it.”

Jen considered, then fished a knife out of a jacket pocket. Lucky, probably, she hadn’t ended up with it at her throat when she’d hit the wall. Jen traced a circle with her free hand on the low inside of Clara’s left forearm. “Put my initials right here. Facing you.” She held out the knife.

Clara swallowed and took it from her gingerly. Took the blade out from where it folded into the handle. Hesitated. Her eyes flicked up to Jen’s one more time for reassurance, for the _I’m sure._ She held steady.

All right. Anything.

She steeled herself and cut the first line, the top of the J. Reflected that she could’ve gone without it, but didn’t want to be called on leaving it out.

“Deeper.”

The rest of the letter. Two motions, meeting at the curve. It hurt, stung, like a burn. Mostly it was nauseating. To self inflict this was a powerful drug she had never touched. But this first dose wasn’t up to her.

The L was two simple lines. She bit her tongue and didn’t cry out. Blood pooled on her skin, dots becoming lines becoming smears blurring the cuts themselves. One line done. Tears came to her eyes unbidden. She felt… what? Vulnerable? This wasn’t new. The order was unexpected but the underlying potential for it had always been there. What was the thought she felt too aware of? _I’d destroy myself if you asked?_

Humiliation? No, she’d borne nearly identical marks before. They were easily hidden when need be. They would fade quickly; she was very good at healing. She had never felt ashamed of her role or whom she belonged to. The letters felt as natural as the collar around her neck.

Second line done. She offered the knife back to her with a shaky breath, pulse racing. The look she gave her would have been defiant under different circumstances. _And? Now?_ The slightly raised head and questioning eyes.

Jen didn’t take it. She examined the marks. She wasn’t sure why that was what she’d wanted—but there was something to self inflicted pain that was stronger than letting someone else do it. It felt more suiting to the, _I’d do anything for you_. It wasn’t, _I’d let you do anything to me._ And all day, Clara had let her and let her do things, and it was different, to bear it, than it was to actively follow self destructive orders.

Clara let her examine the marks now, the knife still in her shaking hand. She hissed when Jen pressed near the letters, a few tears escaping, but she didn’t pull away.

“Network symbol,” Jen murmured, tracing an oval nearby on her skin. “Here.”

“I’m sorry,” Clara whispered, not sure why, but it felt right. Regret and self loathing to go with self destruction.

Jen stroked her cheek. “It’s all right, sweetheart.” Her voice was soothing. She seemed calmer now. Well, she always felt better when she released things on her favorite outlet, didn’t she? She tapped Clara’s arm. “Go on.”

Clara cut the first curve, then adjusted her grip. It hurt differently with the skin in the area sensitized from prior pain. Second one. She could picture the symbol and had doodled it enough and had it cut into her skin enough to know what to do. Where to place the lines. Third. Fuck, it hurt. God, she felt sick. The circumstances were all wrong. Pinned down after a struggle, turned on and warmed up and endorphins flowing, Jen cutting the lines and shushing her, made this much easier. Fourth. The tears flowed easily. Fifth. Choking on a small sob, not so much the pain, terrible as it was, as the emotions that came with it. An overwhelming feeling, to break your own skin and draw your own blood and take a weapon to yourself. Every evolutionary instinct screamed, _What are you doing?_ Breathe. She could do this. Sixth and final line.

Her eyes flicked up again. She didn’t offer the knife but the marks to examine. _This is fucked._ She prayed Jen would take the knife back. Let this be over. She prayed she wouldn’t. She’d gone this far and felt like something wasn’t over. She needed… something. This felt too controlled, now, for the emotions flooding her. Carefully cut little lines into familiar letters and patterns for the mental mess, the quiet in the room for all the screaming in her head.

Jen was calm, eyes running over the marks. She held Clara’s wrist and hadn’t gotten any of Clara’s blood on her hands. How suiting. This was all her own doing. If only it was that simple.

Jen released her, feeling sated. Her frustration throughout the day building and building and Clara throwing her anger back at her cued certain instincts. Just made that anger build faster. When Clara was angry, she got angry back. But when Clara was hurt, it came naturally to soothe and comfort her the moment she was done inflicting the pain, and that instinct tended to also calm herself. And making Clara inflict the pain herself let that instinct kick in faster.

“Shh, sweetheart. You’re okay.” Petting her cheek, her hair. “I’ve got you.” Running a finger over Clara’s lips, feeling the vibrations of the whimpers falling from them, tracing down to her collar, hand closing around it. “Good girl. All mine.”

“All yours, Mistress,” she whispered.

“And I wouldn’t let anything happen to you that you couldn’t take, would I?”

Clara gave a small shake of her head.

“No,” she murmured in agreement. “You should put some antiseptic on that.” Her eyes flicked to the cuts, not producing much more blood at this point. “And then come to bed.”

She nodded, but stared at the floor as Jen left. It still didn’t seem right. The pounding heart and strangled feeling and sickness hadn’t faded. The tears still on her face. The overwhelming flood of emotion and her hand clenched into a fist around the knife and she felt like something in her head was screaming, screaming, screaming.

She cut another line, fast, just a straight slash near the others. Another. Another. It felt like oxygen. Another. The flood quieted. One more. Shaking.

Cleaning the knife. Forgetting the antiseptic. Wandering towards the bedroom. Her heart rate slowing. Nausea fading. Tears drying.

Jen looked at her when she came in, then at the extra lines. Paced over to her. Clara swallowed, avoided her eyes. She felt like she’d done something she wasn’t supposed to.

“Did you get the antiseptic?” Jen asked her softly.

She shook her head. Maybe that was what felt wrong. “I forgot,” she whispered, though she wasn’t sure that was the word. “I cleaned the knife.” Her head wasn’t working.

Jen all but pulled her along by the hand to the bathroom, cleaning the wounds gently, and sitting with her on the bed, petting her hair. “I don’t want you doing this on your own,” she told her. “If you need that, you will come to me.”

“Okay,” Clara mumbled, not looking at her. Not really looking at anything.

“Clara.” Tilting her head back towards her. “Promise me.”

“I promise,” she whispered.

Jen kissed her. “That’s my girl.”


	12. On Laundry: Jen/Clara, Backstory

“Hey, uh, would you show me how to do the laundry stuff?”

Jen looked up from her computer slowly, bewildered. “You… don’t know how to do laundry?” It had been only a week since they really settled in, but surely she couldn’t have missed that in her file. Surely Ezri wouldn’t have neglected it. Surely… something in all those years of parenting?

“I mean, I know how to do laundry, obviously,” said Clara. “But like, how you do sorting, and settings, and all that. I think I can figure out the rest.”

“Sorting,” Jen echoed, confused.

Clara knelt next to her as if they had reached some kind of limit on standing. “Like, if you have specific, y’know, things that go in different loads? Fabrics, colors?”

Jen looked at her still as if she’d lost her mind.

“Or I can just… sort it myself?” Clara offered.

Blinking.

“I know there’s a lot of black; uh, I could separate out denim and then basically anything else? Load for colors? I didn’t see any whites. Obviously I’d handle leather separately. Not machine.”

“Okay,” Jen said slowly. “You can do that if you want?”

“And then… settings?”

“I… whatever it’s set to is fine.”

Clara’s turn to say, “Okay,” slowly.

“It’s not the ‘50s. Like, clean is all I care about. Preferably dry. Maybe put somewhere not on the floor. Check pockets?”

Something clicked. She could see the lightbulb moment on Clara’s face. “Oh,” she said suddenly, sounding gleeful; “you don’t care.”

“Yeah. I… don’t?”

“I mean, good. I was just—well, Ms. Ezri—Ezri—” She caught the title, but didn’t catch the, _well, Ezri says_ fast enough for Jen to not slap her for it. Flinched. “Right.” Jen had tired of hearing, _well, Ezri says_ on day one, asking for Clara’s opinion on something or stating her own. _I’m not Ezri,_ she’d told her. _And neither are you. What do_ you _think?_

Old habits died hard.

She really didn’t have to be kneeling there, either, though Jen didn’t mind either way. She gave her a little kick but smiled. “Go do as I tell you without all the questions, then?”

Clara smiled, though her gaze was on the floor. “Yes, Mistress.” She stood, reached for the fabric of a dress she wasn’t wearing, fingers brushing the denim of jeans, finally gave a slightly flustered nod instead of a curtsy, and left while Jen laughed.


	13. Favors: Ezri/Clara, Chapter 11 (Book 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a request.

The doorbell rang. Ezri. It was funny, really, that she always rang the bell or knocked here, but not at other places, like Charlie’s for parties. Frankly, she probably felt that she was responsible for what she walked into and knew that there was plenty here she might not want to walk into.

“Hey,” said Clara.

“Am I interrupting?”

“No, no, come in.” Holding the door open, but Ezri hesitated.

“Do you want to go for a walk?”

Which meant she wanted her alone. “Sure. Sure, let me just—” She found her phone where she’d left it on the couch and sent Jen, upstairs, a message, tucked the phone in her pocket, and shut the door behind them. They started walking. “What’s up?”

She suspected that it had something to do with Ezri’s… new prospect. More than a prospect; she knew that by the way they looked at each other. It had been nearly three weeks since they’d moved in together and Ezri had held firm on the due process, because she was Ezri, but…

Ezri twined their fingers together and a few paces later said, “I came to ask about a favor.”

“Anything.”

Ezri smiled a little, but there was the _you don’t know what I’m asking for_ in it, and Clara thought _you don’t know how I much I mean that_.

“Well,” said Ezri finally, “Lalia and I have been drafting the Ownership contract. As is normal.”

Clara rolled her eyes. She didn’t need the _as is normal._ It was just Ezri’s way of trying to brush off how attached she was. “Okay.”

“One of the clauses being, if something were to happen—ending the dynamic in something other than normal sale. Death, losing my mind, what have you.”

Ah. Her heart rate picking up a little. “Yeah?” An attached document to her contract with Jen, an amendment, that if she died, Clara would go to Ezri. Of course, in reverse…

“And if it were… to happen, I’d want you to take her.”

“Me,” she echoed, slightly confused.

“You.”

“Oh. But I’m not…”

“I know.”

“I’m an—occasional Top, not an Owner.”

“I know.”

“I don’t do power dynamics on that side.”

“I know.”

Well, she could only rephrase that so many ways. “Why _me_?” Which meant, _why not Jen?_ Or, a still strange but less strange scenario, both of them.

“Exactly _because_ slave is your main role, but… you’ve got enough Switch in you that I think you could do it.”

Her hesitant questions hadn’t meant _no_. And in a way she already knew what Ezri meant. And she _liked_ Lalia, if she didn’t know her thoroughly, she knew she would—she could certainly think of enough things she’d like to do with—to—the girl if she had her for an afternoon, maybe a weekend—but that wasn’t the point. She was sweet, as bookish and clever as Ezri’s tastes could want, obviously attentive and dutiful—she cared. Clara saw no world in which the two didn’t sign that contract.

Did she want to be on the potential far side of it?

 _Want_ was a strong word. _Willing_ was easy. Was she the best person for it? She was clearly Ezri’s top choice. And she had to admit to a feeling of protectiveness—at first of Ezri—it was strange when your best friend met their soulmate, and stranger yet when your last ex met their soulmate—but now, of both of them.

“I’ll have to talk to Jen,” she said.

“Of course. If you want me to talk to her, first or later, I will.”

Clara shook her head. She didn’t imagine this being a long conversation. Jen would say yes, for Ezri, and she knew that. The three seemed to trade strange debts—a convention hotel room, dinner out and dinner made in, catsitting and a Netflix password, a carpool here, a newly made flogger or a book loan there, a scene and a clean house, the dungeon for a night or Christmas at Ezri’s parents', and of course, Clara herself. But they all always owed each other something—even if it was their sanity—and this was just another favor in the grand scheme of it. Lalia was in that cycle now.

“Do me one more favor,” Ezri said, running a thumb over the back of her hand, “and don’t mention it yet. Tell Jen the same. She’d be… overwhelmed.”

“Of course.”

And truly, they hadn’t said much, but there wasn’t much else to be said. She’d covered it quickly. _Anything._ The silence between them was easy, walking back towards the house in no hurry, their hands swinging a little between them.

“Does she make you happy?”

Ezri laughed, in a way that told her it was a dumb question, which was good—she smiled to hear the sound. “Yes. Happier than I’ve ever been.” She squeezed her hand. Clara squeezed back. Maybe the words should’ve hurt, but they weren’t meant to and they didn’t, at this point. And the answer was obvious. She just wanted to hear it one more time, for the same reason she smiled when Ezri laughed at the question.

“And you’re still head over heels?”

“Yes.” There was that laugh again. She gave her a look. “Are you still in love with Jen?” she asked, teasing.

Clara grinned at her. “More every day.”

“Then I think we both finally managed to do something right.”


	14. No Way Out: Jen/Clara, Backstory

Clara appeared in Jen’s peripheral vision looking nervous, shifting her weight and wringing her hands.

“Hey?”

“Hey.” Her voice was breathy. “Can I show you something?”

“… Okay.” Standing, pacing over to her, a steadying touch at her waist.

“You won’t be angry?”

Something wasn’t right. Several things weren’t right, actually, and not being angry was a hard promise to make with so few clues. “What is it?”

“I… when we started—I wanted, to hold onto… a way out. If I needed it.”

There was no way out of their contract except release—this wasn’t the statement of a clause but a resource, a way to get out of the situation regardless of what the contract said, regardless of what Jen wanted. Money, probably. A hidden asset. Something not handed over. A backup plan.

“Okay,” she said, because what was she supposed to do? Be angry that Clara was doing the only action she could ask for—handing that hold out over?

The past… of having had it… no, that wasn’t thrilling, but it was more than logical the way that everything had happened. It was insane to trust someone so quickly, so completely—even with one hold out. Even the trust for the legalities of marriage had been questionable.

But they’d done it.

A week shy of their one year anniversary, apparently some thoughts were being reconsidered.

“What is it?” she asked again.

Clara produced something from a sweater pocket and held it out to her.

Her heart stopped, for a second.

A full bottle of Xanax.

She took it from her gingerly. Heart racing again as she put it together. The prescription bottle was as full as it could be while closing, not the way these bottles came, half empty. A few combined into one, then. _Alprazolam. Clara Chen._ A few years old.

“It was supposed to be for sleep,” Clara said. “More than anything else. But it just made me nauseous. I gave up on meds. But they kept refilling it. No copay. I kept picking it up. I don’t know why. But, I had it around.”

“You were going to kill yourself.”

“No. No, I—I wasn’t _going_ to. It was just… in case. It seemed—if I wanted out, of this—the only way to do it.”

Suicide violated their contract, too, not that much could be done about that once it was done. But it was noted as forbidden to make it a dishonorable exit strategy. But it did seem… it was _different,_ than leaving any other way.

There weren’t any other prescription meds, anything strong, in the house. If you weren’t bold enough for sharps, and if you were kept in the house due to suspicion you might attempt such a thing—or if all known dangers had been taken away—a secret bottle of months of an anxiety med that functioned as a sleeping pill was a… prominent item.

“I don’t want it,” said Clara. “Anymore. And that was… the only thing I kept.”

Jen nodded slowly. Still wasn’t sure how to react to this. It wasn’t a confession of suicidality. That would have prompted a certain response. This was… “Thank you,” was what came out, as she managed to stop holding the bottle like it burned and close her fingers around it. Pressed a slightly shaky kiss to the bridge of Clara’s nose. “Good girl. Mine,” she said, lips brushing hers.

“Yours.”

The kiss was soft and gentle, lingering.

“Well,” said Clara, with an uncomfortable shrug, “that was it.”

Jen nodded, pressed one more kiss to her forehead. Clara left.

Unsure of what else to do, she placed the bottle in a locking file cabinet drawer, the combination unknown to Clara, saved somewhere to be released only in case of death.

In it, the paperwork from Ezri, Clara’s network file, their contract, other key items—and, the reason the drawer was locked from Clara—the keys to her collar.

And now, the pills. They felt too significant to discard.

She placed the bottle next to the keys and locked the drawer again.


	15. Bit of a Schoolgirl Kink?: Ezri+Jen, Chapters 5-6 (Book 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a request.

“Do you want me to just come over?” Jen answered the phone when Ezri had called her back almost immediately after hanging up for the fourth time in a row.

It was almost one o’clock in the morning. Perhaps a bit of snarking was fair. Ezri’d told Lalia to go to bed an hour ago when she realized Lalia would stay up as long as Ezri answered her messages. Clara had stopped answering shortly before. “If you want.”

Neither of them was usually up quite this late. Jen arrived in pajama pants patterned with cats and the omnipresent leather jacket and boots. “If you’re gonna have another moral crisis, I’m gonna drink and go home in the morning.”

“You’re welcome to drink either way.”

Jen examined Ezri's liquor cabinet for several minutes as she usually did, then poured herself the same wine she always did. That, and coffee.

“Good to mix your uppers and downers,” said Ezri.

“It’s called balance,” said Jen. “And now you’re gonna go off about playing while drunk.”

“No,” said Ezri. “I’ve seen you hit Post-it notes with a six foot bull whip after most of a bottle of wine. If you want to fuck your wife at that point, that’s not my problem. However—”

Jen gave her the _I told you so_ look and Ezri ignored her.

“—I, personally, try to avoid it outside of long term relationships.” 

“You made out with me while drunk.”

“Made out. _You_.”

Jen shrugged. “So, what moral crisis did you talk yourself into while I was in the car?”

“Is she too young, you think?”

Jen rolled her eyes. “Your darling twenty-two year old is spiritually seventy somehow and has experience. She’s clearly not stupid or impressionable.”

“She lacks an independent support system.”

“You’ll get her one. She can go be friends with Clara. Pass some kind of slave Bechdel test.”

“She has nonexistent financial resources of her own.”

“She has three jobs and a college degree.”

“I’m getting her involved in something illegal.”

“Nothing you’re not doing yourself.”

Ezri sighed.

“And?”

“And, what?”

“And you desperately want her anyway, because as bad as it all sounds in your little social justice warrior head, she’s cute and good at sex and does whatever you say.”

“She _is_ adorable. I mean, her hair is so soft, and she’s really mastered the innocent big blue eyes during blowjobs thing, the giggly blushy thing, and she has those like—” She cut herself off.

“Yes, the early 1900s farm girl freckles and braids.”

“Please _never_ tell her I said that.”

Jen grinned at her. “You’re welcome to your type. Not my thing.”

“Tall, dark, and masochistic?”

“Something like that. I can go for soft hair.” She twisted a strand of Ezri's hair around her fingers.

“It's just—” Ezri sighed again. “She’s too good to be true. I barely have anything to teach her.”

“I don’t think you’re asking for a lot,” said Jen. Ezri opened her mouth to speak but was cut off. “I mean, okay, your rules are so convoluted you end up having to order someone to break one rule to follow another and get confused yourself, but at the end of the day, you want a cute girl who gives you nice orgasms and nice literary analysis in your nice sex dungeon library.”

Ezri laughed. “Is that all I want?”

“Well, you also want a Golden Retriever, spiritually speaking, and a business partner, but, basically.”

“I was thinking Sheltie,” Ezri said dryly.

“Lassie dog. Early 1900s, farms.”

“Oh, _fuck,”_ said Ezri in realization. Jen laughed. “No, they’re—herders. I was thinking…” She gestured very vaguely. “The trainees. And the little Google blurb calls them _trainable._ ”

“You Googled it.”

“Fuck. I don’t know. It’s late. I’m so tired. Fuck.”

Jen was still laughing. “Go to bed, Ezri.”

They both did. She wasn’t sure how Jen had first talked her way into her bed, given the six guest beds, but now it always happened if Clara wasn’t there, and the warmth and another person breathing nearby was admittedly nice. She was awake long after Jen fell asleep, listless, thinking.

Was it bad to fetishize some more childlike traits? _“Bit of a schoolgirl kink, Ezri?”_ But she _was_ an adult—

Jen tossed and turned and whimpered, lost in a dream, stilled and quieted shortly after Ezri absently took her hand. Support systems, or lack thereof—

“Go the fuck to sleep,” Jen mumbled, maybe not as lost in dreams anymore as thought.

So, she did.


	16. No Regrets: Ezri/Clara, Backstory

Clara’s bouts of not sleeping for three days at a time never seemed to line up with Jen’s bouts of research monomania that led her to the same. And Clara came out of such bouts exhausted and drained, while Jen emerged with functional software or mastery of a new leather working technique. She wasn’t stupid; she knew their bouts were different, the insomniac versus the obsessed, but she still envied the results.

Oddly, her schedule of this seemed better synced to Ezri’s monomania bouts than Jen’s, and often this led to sitting with Ezri at her house or wherever was open at midnight while Jen slept for all of the five or six hours she did at night. She always had trouble sleeping past four-thirty and didn’t seem worse off for it, and Clara never believed that humans were meant to be up before ten.

Ezri, tonight, at some bar open late, was off about some peer reviewed academic journal article by someone, PhD from Yale, about the neurological chemical processing of pain in subspace. Only Ezri seemed to find such official research on what for most people was just an orgasmic rush.

Clara stared down the red wine she’d ordered like they didn’t have it at home—at least Jen was smart enough to order something different when they went out, usually trading said red wine for something with a cute name that was basically vodka with food coloring.

If Clara’d listened to her mother’s advice to pursue her own future outside of the home, and hadn’t ignored the tall stack of acceptance letters and scholarship offers, she could’ve been studying the neurochemistry of subspace at Yale, too, or Harvard, or Princeton, instead of sitting at a shitty bar with her ex sipping a drink she didn’t want.

Yale sounded miserable.

When she said so, Ezri laughed. “I do wonder why you didn’t go, sometimes.”

“I would’ve killed myself. It’s just four more years of high school except everything’s an AP. And I’d already practically done that. That’s how you get into Yale. And I had the kids.”

Her application essay had begun with, _My twelve year old brother asked a girl out for the first time recently. He learned a lesson about cruel rejection and I learned that thirteen years of ballet did not teach me the grace to not drop the girl’s drink all over her the next time she arrived at Starbucks during my shift; nor did ballroom, modern, or swing._

The Ivy League loved _passion_.

“But I loved college,” said Ezri with the dreamy sigh she got when she talked about academia. Her notebook, the printout of the discussed paper tucked in it, annotated in purple cursive, looked out of place on the bar wiped down for effect every half hour with a uselessly dry cloth. “Every minute of it. I wanted to get a Master’s but I couldn’t figure out where it would get me.”

“In English.”

“Well, that’s why I didn’t. I think I also hoped if I stayed in school, Emma would’ve stayed, too. We'd agreed we’d both leave when we were done. Graduated at the same time, Bachelor’s. Emma _Rod_ riguez. English Major. We got to be next to each other at graduation. She had such good literature takes. And God, she was good at oral. At the time. I’ve been better impressed since.” She flicked Clara’s arm.

“See, I learned things outside of college.”

Ezri laughed until she had to push her glasses back into place. Alcohol made her giggly and devious and no more stupid somehow and enough of it made Clara feel like thoughts were things that happened to other people, valedictorian stereotype or not.

Her mother had also said she did too much homework and should try a party, a drink, getting laid. She’d tried all of those if she'd never answered that acceptance letter from Yale.

Hence, the shitty bar with her ex sipping a drink she didn’t want.

Yet, no regrets.


	17. Expectations: Ezri/Clara, Backstory

Ezri’s first group of entry trainees had finished arriving five minutes ago and it was already a disaster.

She saw now that her expectations had clearly been too high. And she had already determined that seven trainees was too many.

Four of them had forgotten the _speak when spoken to_ rule as she went over key orientation points, asking questions unbidden. Thus far, each had the sense to only do it once. A fifth did it as well, but that one had waited long enough Ezri suspected it was only due to the unaddressed neglect of the first four. The sixth seemed confused by this, doubting the rule, turning and looking at the others, at Ezri, in and out of position, but not yet daring to speak. The seventh was silent, and the only one to actually hold the standing position specified for such instruction.

After one of those first four had broken the rule twice, Ezri paused shortly after and asked, “Can anyone tell me what the first rule of orientation was?”

The five who had spoken shut up or looked lost. The sixth squirmed uncertainly. The seventh crossed her wrists in front of her at hip level without any other movement, fingers closed, right over left. Nonverbal request for permission to speak. Ezri would’ve happily let the question be counted as a prompt at this point. At least one of them had sense. “Clara?” She called on her like a schoolteacher getting impatient.

Shift back to position. “Speak when spoken to, ma’am.” Didn’t look up as she said it, but the smile was visible. The title usage had been hit or miss from the others, too.

“Good.” She gave an abridged version of the rest of her speech, reminded them of each rule she had seen crossed so far, and dismissed them to settle into their rooms. She would need to do some new planning.

Six were very eager to get out of her sight, though two hesitated for a moment, then went with the group. Clara lingered, offered the only curtsy with a slight smirk, and finally followed.

Ezri shook her head. Maybe she should just keep that one.


	18. Lovers' Spats: Ezri+Jen, Backstory

When Ezri answered the door, Jen wrapped her arms around her neck and nestled her head into her shoulder, which meant, _I don’t want to fight anymore._

Ezri’s arms around her waist and lips at her temple meant, _Me either._

Their _lovers' spats_ (as Clara put it) were not linked to any particular medium, but they always _kissed and made up_ (as Clara put it) in person.

There was, to be fair, usually a decent amount of kissing—pressed at cheeks and foreheads and necks and hands. On the lips might not even be horribly out of place. And, staying the night in Ezri’s bed after a reconciliatory talk was common.

“Do you hate me?” Jen asked, muffled into her shoulder.

“No,” Ezri laughed, kissing the side of her face. “Of course not.”

“Good. Because I’m—” looking up a little “—I’m getting very attached to the idea that you don’t.”

“I don’t.”

“Good.”

“Do you hate me?”

“No.” Laugh. “I love you.”

“Good.”

“Why do you always forgive me?” Muffled into her shoulder again.

“Because I love you, too.” Stroking her back. “Why do you always forgive me?”

“Because you’re my best friend. I’m not right without you.” Drawing back, shaky breath. “I need you. And you know I don’t do that.” Foreheads resting together, her hands in Ezri’s hair. “So if something is broken between us, I need to fix it.”

“Nothing’s broken.” Pause. It was all true. Oh, it had been hard to figure out what to be for, with, each other—what do you do when your ex is married and collared and sold a week later, with her or her wife? And they fought—oh, they fought— _like an old married couple_ (as Clara put it)—but… “Has it occurred to you, that even without legal entanglement and mental conditioning, you’re a lovable person?”

Jen half laughed. “Maybe.”

“Why do you think otherwise?”

“It’s just—you know—I never got the thing where you supposedly have these friends—but you won’t like, commit. It’s like you’re friends until your first fight or the first time they’re sick and you want to go to a party—and none of it means anything—and you just do your own things and at some point they like, get new friends or get obsessed with their boyfriend or move away or—like, there’s this concept of ‘childhood friends’ and ‘school friends’ and ‘work friends’, which is all a really nice way of saying ‘friends of convenience’ and I dunno—I always wanted— _more._ And I think that’s why people get married, and like, yeah, I love Clara, I _need_ Clara—but I need you, too, even if you’re not my wife or my girlfriend or my slave and I think it’s fucking stupid that you’re supposed to be fucking before you goddamn commit to loving someone.” Pause, inhale. “Y’know?” Wide eyed.

“I know.” Stroking her cheek, voice gentle. “Not sure that’s what I asked, but I know.”

“Because people leave,” Jen summarized. “And leave, and leave.”

“Well,” said Ezri; “I don’t. No matter how many times you randomly blow up at me on the phone.”

Jen laughed, but said, “God, I’m sorry. I was just…”

“It’s okay. I should’ve realized you were just… well, I shouldn’t have thrown it back at you.”

“It’s been a long week. If it helps, I’m sure I’ve been a bitch to Clara, too.”

“Not sure _helps_ is the right word, but—I’ll take it.”

“Not that she’ll call me on it. I guess that’s what I have you for. Reality check. Can’t spend all my time with an acolyte slave. I’ll get an ego.”

“ _Get_ an ego?”

“Shut up. Weren’t you lecturing me about not loving myself two minutes ago?”

“There’s a balance.” But, Ezri thought, it really was good for both of them, to have a space with someone they loved and trusted, where neither was in charge. Where there was not the responsibility or influence of control. Or the ego boosting. Of an acolyte slave or even temporary trainees.

They both needed that, needed each other. That would never change.


	19. Wanting (Part 1): Lalia, Backstory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a request.

Lalia was fourteen when she stumbled upon the dark side of fan fiction.

It happened slowly, really. Things rated for violence and themes and fade to black. Then, romance centered pieces with on screen, explicit but not vulgar sex scenes starting maybe halfway in and occurring every few chapters. Then ones that started and _ended_ with the sex, and where sex was… a little bit more.

The content was not so shocking to her—but the terminology was new. Endless research rabbit holes. _Oh, there’s a word for that. And that. And that._

Labels for her earliest daydreams. Some of her earliest _memories_ were of those daydreams. Of lulling herself to sleep with the same few mental stories told slightly differently over and over again. Fiction that addressed it explicitly started to add fuel and more than the same few tropes.

Otherwise, it was kind of blushing, and reading the same few pages—even paragraphs—of relatively innocent children’s books over and over that mentioned any kind of corporal punishment. She hung on every word of friends’ stories with guilt. She liked the corporal part—she didn’t know why, but she fixated on it—but the punishment part bothered her. She liked the act, but she didn’t like the idea of doing something wrong beforehand, and surely you couldn’t do it just because. Liking any part of it was obviously not something others felt and not something to be shared. She caught onto that quickly.

In her own daydreams, she usually corrected for the punishment part with misunderstandings, accidents, pointlessly cruel authority figures, and, most frequently, something noble, often a combination of a pointlessly cruel authority figure and taking someone else’s, also someone underserving’s, punishment for them. (Some of them were not, in truth, so different to what had happened that final night at TrainingMax with Tamora, which had been very strange for her to process.)

It was fan fiction that first showed her that _just because_ was actually a valid option for the physical. Having a few words to look up showed her the words and literature and valid options for the rest. She liked to please; that had seemed simple. The rule thing? The chore lists? She just liked to know how to do it.

Her early fantasies were always set in some kind of broader context. Some kind of institution like a boarding school or orphanage was common, probably because that was what she saw in the children’s fiction. There were always other kids, some misbehaved or simply incompetent for background plot—and a chance for the heroic side of her fantasies to fix it—and the adults in charge. She lost rank to the rest of the kids, usually. Sometimes a more long form punishment. Sometimes a scholarship fallen through. She never got the choice in it, because that was too much like the _just because._ This plot line always put her in a position of servitude and low status. Usually there was a lot of labor involved, more frequent physical incidents.

The adults were always the problem, and save a few bullies, the other kids weren’t in a great place either and despite her own worse situation, she often ended up in a role of offering comfort and protection—sometimes actually aided by her servile status. A bit of extra food slipped at meal times here, an extra blanket from the laundry at night there.

She saw, much later, the very first inklings of _the majordomo side_ in those fantasies, if the negative side because she’d only had the concept of it being non consensual and discipline focused. Taking the blame. Fixing others’ mistakes. An in between role of protection from a higher power.

(She thought about that a little, checking on the trainees after a long day.)

It wasn’t all daydreams. She liked to be useful in the real world, where she could. The teacher’s pet (always unpopular). The volunteer. The mom friend. The older sister.

Now, Lalia was seventeen. Her boyfriend, Tyler, was also seventeen.

She slid in next to him on the bus home; he looped a tight arm around her shoulders. “Hey. How was Stats?”

She’d seen him last in fifth period; sixth, Statistics, was another test she could not imagine higher than a B minus on, though she hadn’t gotten results yet. She shook her head, leant against him.

She was a near straight A student. It wasn’t so much lack of effort in Statistics but that she had stopped understanding math or heavy science homework near the start of high school, and understanding that about herself made anxiety muddle her answers even when she tried, and gave her less motivation to try at times, the perfectionist who dropped what she wasn’t good at.

Tyler gave her a little squeeze. “Hey. You’ll do better next time.” That, audible if anyone could hear anything over the ruckus of the bus, was a boyfriend’s reassurance. The, “I mean that,” in her ear was more. She had promised not only her parents a better Statistics grade, but also Tyler. They had come to a certain set of agreements in the Statistics department, one of which was that she would get an eighty-five or better on this test. If not, there were consequences. Delivered before her sister got home from middle school, and with love, but consequences. It wasn’t adversarial; contrary to her daydreams, in the real world it was better to have a partner who actually wanted you to do better, not an excuse to punish you. He helped her study. He checked her homework. He made sure she ate lunch on test days, not skipping due to anxious nausea and then having no energy in sixth period. He stroked her hair when she worried about it too much.

(Later, when she told Ezri she had never been in _such a relationship before,_ Ezri had pointed out to her upon later extrapolation that it didn’t seem entirely true. It wasn’t that every relationship she’d been in was the picture of vanilla, but Tyler wasn’t her Dominant, let alone her Owner, but… a boyfriend who, in his own way, just wanted to help any way he could. Though they were very honest with each other, whether it was that they would probably go separate ways for college or that Lalia also liked girls, or their other proclivities. The sex was pleasantly rough, but they didn’t really have _scenes_ and there wasn’t too much to it.)

She got a C plus on the Statistics test and Tyler followed through on his promise—not a threat, as in the early daydreams, but a promise. He stayed, after, and stroked her hair, and went over the test corrections with her with patience.

Her father asked about the test at dinner, and she squirmed but admitted to the grade honestly. Her parents went through phases of caring more or less about her grades, from not noticing semester report cards to interrogating her about every test. Even when they cared, though, there was no promise and no followthrough, just demands. And they never seemed to care much about anything else, like what she was reading or where her and Tyler had gone on their date or if she thought maybe she should see a therapist. (She shouldn’t have asked about the last one. The quarterly birth control bill was easy to hide, but frequent enough therapy would’ve been harder. Still, asking had not gone well.)

“Well, why would you do that?” To the test. To getting a C plus.

“I wasn’t trying to.” Tyler’s hand on her thigh under the table was soothing.

“Well, you should’ve tried harder. Do you think you’re going to get into any good colleges with those kinds of grades?”

“I—”

“—Your father’s right,” her mother cut in. “You haven’t been any good in math in years now; I don’t know what got into you.”

It was as if math got progressively harder as you went. “I—”

“You’re just not trying like you used to in middle school.”

“I got an A second semester last year,” she mumbled, which was true.

“That was just because that one teacher liked you for some reason. What was his name? Anyway.”

Strange that they knew he liked her but couldn’t remember his name. And he hadn’t liked her.

“It looks like you get it when Tyler’s here to help you and then whenever he’s not, I see you just staring at the textbook having one of those little tantrums you throw with all the breathing and tears and not getting anything done.”

“It’s called a panic attack.” Her voice was getting smaller and smaller.

“I don’t care what it’s called. I care that you pass math.”

“I still have a B in the class,” she whispered.

“Y’know,” said Tyler, who, according to Lalia’s parents, could do no wrong, “I did everything backwards and took Stats last year. Hard stuff. But second semester was way better. My mom said it was like a whole different class. Oh, by the way, she still wanted to ask you for that potato recipe?”

Distraction a little obvious, but successful.

After dinner, she volunteered to clean up as if it would compensate. Tyler helped. They were quiet, until she was drying dishes and the tears spilled over. He held her tightly. “I’m sorry,” she whispered over and over.

“Shh. Hey. I know. We did that part, remember?”

“I know.”

“And you _are_ trying. No matter what they say. Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered, and it wasn’t that she thought she wasn’t trying at all, but certainly not hard enough. Until her parents lost interest again. She ached to know what the pattern was. With Tyler, she knew what the pattern was. When she could stop feeling bad. She sniffled and drew back from him, went back to the dishes. At least, compensation or not, she could do something useful. She’d always taken comfort in that.

He sighed, and when they were done, said, “I gotta get home. You’ll be okay?”

She nodded.

“Call me, if you need me.” Not a suggestion.

“I will.”

He kissed her forehead, her lips. “Try to relax. Hey, didn’t you say that online author you liked posted something new?”

“Yeah.”

“Then go read that. And then get some sleep.” He ruffled her hair. Still not a suggestion. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

She did read it. For maybe twelve thousand words, she got lost in a world where rules were stringent but consistent, where usefulness was highly valued, where pain and pleasure mixed. She left an embarrassingly gushing review even for an anonymous one. The author did not respond at length to comments, fairly anonymous on their side, too. The always once off pieces were posted infrequently, but Lalia read them again and again. She drifted off to sleep all but mentally reciting an earlier posting to herself.

Perhaps four miles away, thirty-five year old Ezri Roderick shook her head a little, flustered, but pleased, at the latest feedback.

“I told you that you should do fiction more often,” said Clara, kneeling up to read the screen over her shoulder.

Ezri gave her a slight shove back into proper position. “You just want me to write more porn.”

Clara shrugged. “Time writing porn is time not spent _living_ porn. And it wasn’t all porn. But I do think it’s fair to share a little with the rest of the world.”

“Well,” said Ezri, shutting the computer, “the rest of the world can wait.”


	20. Wanting (Part 2): Lalia, Backstory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a request.

Spring semester, freshman year of college.

Going home for Christmas had been a terrible idea. 

Home hadn't been good in a long time, anyway. And she'd known coming out to her parents would not go well. She did it anyway, before she left home, because she wasn't going to be able to hide it forever if she included her parents in her life at all. She needed to know to what extent it wouldn’t go well. She didn’t expect immediate disowning or violence—and it didn’t come—but the ultimatum of paying for college on her own was something she’d anticipated, if dreaded. When on a bad day she’d impulsively pressed the seeing a therapist or psychiatrist issue again, that sort of ultimatum was implied. Her parents valued _normalcy._

And at some point, she would be with a girl. Even if she eventually settled down with a guy one day, there would be a meantime. And honestly, that struck her as unlikely; the more time passed, the less interested in men she became, though never to the point it felt right to shed bisexual as a label, even, in the other direction, in the name of the perhaps more accurate pansexual. Bi was the word she’d found first, a word that felt like home in a good way. She couldn't hide it forever. Other proclivities… she might have a chance to hide from her parents, at least.

But after a full semester of a taste of what life was like outside of her family, even not far from home and just not visiting, going back had been impossible. She’d nearly left earlier than scheduled, though the dorms were closed and she didn’t know where she’d go. She’d realized, staring down a spreadsheet, that she’d started planning the financials to get an apartment that summer before Christmas Eve dinner.

Still, she called now and then, bracing herself, saying little, and thinking each time that maybe she wouldn’t call again. But eventually guilt would stir.

She didn’t have friends at work or school. Her roommate was very nice, but with busy schedules, they barely crossed paths in their waking hours. Acquaintances. There were people she could call for notes when she was sick, trade shifts with, send a meme to in the afternoon, but not much more.

She was making polite small talk with an English 101, and now English 102, classmate who lived in her building, in the shared dorm kitchen when they asked, “Hey, y’know that author panel thing we can go to for extra credit? Do you wanna like, come with me?”

Lalia looked around as if they could be talking to someone else. Sawyer. Nineteen. Nonbinary. Long half undercut, currently purple, green last semester. Deathly Hallows tattoo. Glasses. Kinda bossy. Talked a lot in class, on subject. (She had, maybe, half of a type.) “Ah, yeah, sure, that’d be—yeah. Did you wanna meet up before, somewhere, or there, or…?”

“Yeah, let’s do dinner at the pizza place that’s in that shopping center first? At five." 

“I. Yeah. Sounds great.”

“Cool.”

The night out was fine, casual. They texted a lot after, at first about the panel, and then about anything else. They started hanging out without school excuses. They started holding hands. Cuddling. Falling asleep together. Kissing. They talked about it before they got much further, had the whole consent conversation, the STD questions, labels, monogamy, all that.

“All right,” said Sawyer as they trailed off from agreeing to be conventionally monogamous into a bit of philosophy, “so what weird shit are you into?”

“I.”

“Come on. I love it when you’re all blushy and shy but it’s gotta be hiding some fucked up kinks.”

“I…”

“Obviously, you’re a bottom. For what?”

“Ah, I, well—it’s—I’ve never really—I mean—I guess I have—it’s not—”

“Well, we know you’re not a virgin. So what'd you get up to with that one boy?" 

Well, that was a much easier starting place than _what weird shit are you into,_ so she talked about what she'd done with Tyler. It was easy to talk from there about what she wanted that they hadn't done. Noting that none of it was something she _required_ (she was trying to tell herself that; she had a chance of being normal) but…

Sawyer had a tiny bit more experience in the play stuff. They introduced her to more impact, electricity—they had a neon wand, a fan themselves—and light bondage, tape that only stuck to itself, or leather cuffs, mostly. The idea of wax play, though it was messy for the small spaces of dorms and they didn’t do it. Lalia played with it a little herself, thought it felt nice, but was definitely lacking at least when done on her own. When they played with temperature, they kept it to ice. Condoms filled with water and frozen became ice dildos to be used with ice cubes and chilled metal clamps. Abrasion, nails and a Wartenberg wheel. Rubber bands to snap on skin or wrap around nipples as clamps. Sensation, pain. Impact struck a real chord, but what she liked best was actually what they built between them with words.

Even when the sex was otherwise pretty vanilla looking, she needed to nicely ask permission to come, she called Sawyer _sir,_ and she needed to thank them when they said yes. It wasn’t much, but it was a direction she wanted to go.

When they weren’t fucking, she probed the waters on other things. Sat on the floor while Sawyer sat on the bed when they did homework together. Threw in a, “Yes, sir,” or two when they were alone. Phrased questions as permission requests. Made a point to handle the food when they ate together, clean up after their play, bring them something to drink, make the bed when they woke, tidy up their dorm a little. Was a little overly polite and deferential, apologized when she wasn’t. Sawyer didn’t really react to these things, or would roll their eyes, or ask what she was doing, or just turn it into sex, in the right mood.

She became very aware of how badly she wanted the rest of it, and for Sawyer to understand.

And Sawyer tried to understand, and indulged her a little. Gave little rules. She could greet them with a beverage ready when they came over; little things.

She knew she'd gotten pushier about it with time, in the counterintuitive way of trying to ease someone into a dominant role they didn't want to be in, and losing patience. She wanted to give Sawyer control, and knew better than to go, _You’re not using it properly,_ because that wasn’t real control, but she felt strongly the, _You’re barely using it at all._ They did, just in such little ways she barely felt it. Whenever she'd truly wanted something, she'd wanted it strongly and completely and insatiably and this was just the same. Little touches of control, or only in bed, or limited control, were just not enough.

She came without permission once, quite by accident. Sawyer was the sort of sadist who liked to tease and tease and tell her no and tonight, they pushed too far. Lalia’s body betrayed her despite her best efforts. And while it was a helpless accident, she apologized profusely, but all Sawyer did was brush her off. It wasn’t on purpose. Let it go. But she felt guilty, and _let it go_ didn’t fix it.

And she understood the point of not punishing for accidents—it could be a messy line to define, but…

But she felt like _accident_ hadn’t been the issue.

One busy day, in the chaos of settling in from work moments before Sawyer arrived, she forgot greeting them with a drink. She remembered, got them one within minutes of their arrival, and apologized, but was greeted with a blank look.

“You… made the rule that I have a drink ready for you when you get here? Sir?”

“Oh; oh, yeah. That. I forgot, too. Don’t worry about it.”

“How'd you forget?” It came out a little accusing. She felt more like _she'd_ been forgotten than the rule had. Would've understood if Sawyer threw it back at her.

“Well, you usually just do it. So I don’t really think about it.”

Well, yes, normally she did her job. She didn’t need it to be constantly noticed, but at least missed in its absence? She felt like Sawyer wasn’t doing their part.

They broke up fall semester of junior year, and it was a long time coming. No big blow up, but a painful admittance that it hadn't been working for some time. Sawyer’s doing. There was the power exchange issue and a few minor others.

Lalia'd stopped calling her family back sophomore year, answered in texts. She was getting a little better, at least, about admitting when things just weren’t working, moped for a while, but didn’t try to fix it.

There were a few flings with girls the next two semesters. None went far, but were pleasant if shallow while they lasted. Her final semester brought too much chaos to consider dating. And besides… she told herself she was unlikely to find what she wanted without actually poking her head into the BDSM scene. She had a FetLife—even Sawyer had—and she’d poked around online, but… she’d have to take a deep breath and suck it up and go in person. _After graduation,_ she told herself. If she could make it through college, she could make it through a munch, and she’d actually have the time to talk to people instead of doing homework under the table like she did at work.

She read a lot, studied skills, practiced certain things on her own. If she was going to go seeking something, she should make herself more appealing a prospect. She liked to be the best at things.

And she got to a munch, heart pounding, hands shaking. At the first one, she saw how _normal_ it all was. It was just a few tables pushed together on a sunny Starbucks patio and normal people talking about work and their kids and their dogs, and sometimes scenes they’d done at a play party recently or ones they wanted to. Asking if anyone else was going to a flogging class coming up. Debating which kink groups in town to try out and which to avoid. Was that one place too swingery, or actually kink friendly? What was it called? Temptation?

Everyone was welcoming and quick to reassure her that munches were no big deal and draw her into conversations; someone even offered her a ride for another munch coming up, which she accepted. She could do this again.

After that second munch, gaining bravery, she even set out for that one debated venue alone. Temptation. It was just a venue, not an event, so she could keep to herself, stand around, watch, get a feel for it, just… see what came of an actual kink friendly environment not housed in a vanilla setting. Let some tendencies out more than subtly. But try to blend in.

_“You’re new.”_

Well, so much for that.

 _“Relatively.”_ A bristle of wondering what'd given her away. And not wanting to wave a classic flag of the vulnerable _I’m young and inexperienced and submissive and don’t know what I’m doing._

 _“Last few days?”_ Offering her a chance of an answer vague enough to imply she wasn’t totally new to Temptation, without actually lying.

 _“Yes, ma’am."_ She would've liked to say the words were instinct, slipped off her tongue, but it was a bit more careful than that. Titles unbidden were often a bad idea in the scene, but the observation had told her that this case might be okay. Whether she thought about it or not, once the words were out of her mouth, they felt _right._

They felt right then, and every time after.


	21. Relief (Part 1): Jen/Clara, Backstory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a request.

Slow morning. Almost not the morning. Nearing noon. The bed was made, but Clara was still in pajamas on the couch, sipping black coffee and answering messages from Jasmine.

“Did you eat breakfast?” Jen asked when she came in for more coffee.

“No.” Added, “I’m not hungry.” It wasn’t entirely untrue. She wasn’t _hungry._ She didn’t _need_ food yet. And she had looked up the word enough times to know that its definition was about _need._

But Jen wasn’t interested in semantics or any other argument. “You’re going to have at least one piece of toast, and an egg, and some of the strawberries.”

Clara glared at her hands in her lap instead of at her. She’d gotten away with not eating breakfast yesterday—sometimes, if she’d been good about it for a while, she’d get a day without the nudging. There was no standing rule. Trying to do it two days in a row, however, especially having barely touched dinner the night before, brought command instead of nudging.

“Clear?”

“Crystal,” she muttered, and did as she was told. She threw it up later, for the first time in a long time, but she hadn’t been told not to do that.

She made dinner that night, but pushed food around on her plate in a way that had fooled the kids enough for the right amount of years but had, even done far less frequently, only convinced Jen for at most all of three months.

Clara had all but begged Ezri not to tell her—it wasn’t a big problem anymore, she pointed out, not a current danger, just leftover tendencies, little incidents, and it wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t something to lead with.

She’d meant to tell her, really. But Jen was not forthcoming about her past and Clara knew there were pieces she was hiding, and felt a little vindicated in keeping a secret or two of her own, right or not. She let Jen hide what she wanted, but she’d been baffled when she found the food supply in the bedroom closet while she was cleaning. Sealed non perishables, neatly tucked in two nondescript boxes, nothing that would’ve been out of the ordinary in overflow kitchen storage, maybe, but why was it in the bedroom? She hadn’t gone straight to a connection to any of those secrets.

But she could see the defense walls fly up when she asked about it. “Why are there boxes of food in the bedroom closet?”

“Why don’t you tell me about _your_ food issues?” was the counter.

Well, good opportunity if she’d ever heard one. “I was anorexic for a decade. Your turn.”

She kind of didn’t expect an answer, after that. The, “Okay. I just like to know there’s food in the house if something happened. Let’s go back to your turn," was a bit of a non answer, but more than she’d expected. But she was getting an idea of it, anyway, watching the reaction, and knew not to press. A history of a lack of food security and hoarding went hand in hand.

Later, months later, when she got basically the full truth, she’d realized that a lack of food security, in her head, had been a strictly poverty issue. But it hadn’t been that. A bit of a lack of money, but mostly neglect, not a well stocked kitchen, not food able to be cooked by a child, no help…

And, plenty of weekends Jen had been _grounded_ , which meant being locked in her room without food. Escape attempts and hidden supplies were all eventually _remediated._

Explaining the whole _eighteen year old girl with a_ _self destructive personality wrapped deeply in circles of dancers and homeschooling group PTA mom equivalents, as she processed grieving her mother_ thing seemed practically casual at that point. It would’ve been all but straight up unlikely that she _didn’t_ develop an eating disorder.

And about how as the near misses got too severe, too frequent, too close to—by then, only Jasmine, of the _kids_ , or adopted siblings—realizing there was a big issue, she got her shit together enough to go to therapy and take her meds and stop throwing up and start eating more. It was a slow, painful process, and there were still bad days, bad weeks, but… she’d stopped the therapy and the pills, though she tried something for her sleep or lack thereof now and then, which never worked, or always had a catch, or didn’t work for long.

To her understanding, Jen had never willingly tried therapy and had entertained medication only briefly and only for sleep, though it wasn’t insomnia that plagued her (if you accepted that some humans woke up at four in the morning of their own free will) as much as the nightmares, and medication only gave them a stronger hold.

Everyone had their problems.

So, pushing food around on her plate.

Jen managed to sigh, “Clara, eat,” without stopping the sentence she’d been in the middle of, which was an impressive skill, but the vague command was less of an influence than the clearly disappointed look. Even then, she managed only two more small bites of food before she couldn’t force herself to continue.

It was a strange night that saw them apart after dinner; Clara cleaned up, did not throw up dinner, and told herself that some practice would be productive, not just calorie burning, and took to copying some dance sequences out of a queue of videos saved on her phone in the empty playroom, which had both ample space and a lack of mirrors—which it was important to practice without now and then, and then she didn’t have to look at herself and keep thinking about it. The focus required was distracting, and it was something she enjoyed; it felt good while she was doing it, but when she was losing concentration, she noticed that the tight feeling in her chest had only wound around itself even tighter while she was distracted.

Agitated, her mind went to another somewhat familiar outlet.

It was impossible to go far in the house without finding something sharp; she picked up the nearest knife, a little flip to open one with a curved blade, already most of the way through the mental justification that if she knew what she was doing and wasn’t intending to go too far, it wasn’t _endangerment_ worth violating their second rule—safety, sometimes with an emphasis on the protective _you’re of no use to me dead_ and sometimes with an emphasis on the sadist’s possessive _you are mine alone to hurt, not even your own_.

This wasn’t her first choice mode of self destruction; let her starve or let someone else do it. She’d self inflicted pain like this only once, under orders and supervision, and then not under orders and supervision, immediately after, and that had ended—shit. Jen _had_ specifically forbidden it then, hadn’t she? _If you need that, you will come to me._

Yes. She had said that.

Slow exhale. Fingers closing around the knife.

She wasn’t fully aware of finding Jen in her office, didn’t think there had been a decision, knelt next to her in a helpless gesture of defeat. Surrender. Kneeling had always felt best to her when she was psychologically helpless to do anything else. She offered the knife on upturned palms, resting in Jen’s lap, and whispered only, “Please.”

Jen didn’t take it from her. “What did I tell you to do this morning?”

Clara bit her lip. “To eat breakfast?”

“And what did you do?”

“I did eat breakfast.” But there was a helpless whine of protest in her voice. She knew what was coming.

“Yes. Bare minimum. And then?”

“And… then I purged it.” Stupid to think Jen wouldn’t notice.

“And what did I say at dinner?”

“To eat. And I did,” she added, same tone.

“Did you?”

“A little.”

“Clara.”

Squirming.

“And then?”

“And… then I tried to burn off calories. I know—I _know._ I just need… fuck.” Hung her head a little farther. “Please. I know I don’t deserve it.” A whimper. “But… please.” She was at Jen’s mercy here. Pain was an addiction like any other, the endorphin rush as easy to control someone with as any other drug of choice. To control her access to pain was to control _her._ She knew that. She’d understood since day one that Jen’s unique ability to give her the depth and types of pain she needed in the long term was an addicting and key factor of control.

“You’ll eat breakfast and dinner every day for the next week, no purging. I’ve tried not to make any of those demands more than one meal at a time; I know it’s hard; but I can’t have you needing both that and this.” She took the knife from her, finally, held it up. “It’s too much to be good for you. If you ask me again, I’ll say yes, because it’s safer than leaving you alone to do it, but you’ve gotta work with me.”

Clara swallowed, nodded. “And if I don’t? Mistress?” It was not the brat’s _make me_ but the slave’s request for clarification, soft, head lowered, the title on the end.

“Then you’ll be getting back in touch with your psychiatrist, and _remaining_ ‘in touch’ until I see fit. Look at me.” Clara did. “It’s not a punishment. But if you can’t control it for a week at a time when I’m giving you other outlets, I want a professional involved. I won’t even ask you to see a therapist. I know that’d be complicated now. But.” She sighed, stroked Clara’s cheek; Clara flinched when she reached for her, but quickly melted into the touch. Noticed the tears on her cheeks for the first time as Jen brushed them away. “I’ll hold your hand every time if I have to, but you need to eat. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Jen slid one of Clara’s sleeves up. Offered one slow, careful, shallow cut across her arm. Paused, let her feel it, the stinging pain that hit a moment delayed. Another, above it. Pause. Another. Clara’s breathing came ragged, but she felt _relief_ watching the lines appear on her skin. The pain was a sharp point of focus that drew her out of the vague wallowing that had been sucking her back in all day. It felt like the tightness in her chest loosening up and tension winding through her unwinding itself and nausea fading and headache dulling and _relief._ Feeling just where the knife was. The rest of her body surrendering to that point of focus. Another line. Fixating on the contrast of the red on pale skin seemed to almost enhance her teary vision.

“You get one more.”

She nodded; it would be enough.

One more, then. The red dots of blood at the thickest parts of the line all smearing together. A shuddering sigh of relief.

Jen let her enjoy it for a minute, breathe, then said, “Go get some antiseptic wipes and come back.”

Clara did. Jen cleaned up the wounds with a gentle touch. Clara slept with strange ease that night. Breakfast in the morning was not so easy at first. Jen held her hand as promised and offered both a lover’s gentle encouragement and an Owner’s firmer command. “It’s part of your job to take care of my property,” she said, the word carefully chosen. “To make sure that you’re as valuable as possible.”

Why some of the emotional edge seemed to be taken off after that, vague distraction replacing distress, nudging back to the task a reminder but not more, Clara wasn’t sure, but obeying Jen had always been easier than merely taking care of herself, and she liked doing it. It felt nearly subspace inducing to do it now.

Jen smiled at her and shook her head to herself a little. Let it not be said that those hypnotic triggers didn’t have kind uses.


	22. Relief (Part 2): Jen/Clara, Backstory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a different request.

Clara couldn’t sleep.

It was a familiar sensation, but she hadn’t hit acceptance just yet. She just wanted to sleep. And the more she wanted to sleep, the more it evaded her, and the more frustrated she got.

She hadn’t slept the night before, either. Dozed after shutting the light for an hour or two, but then was awake so long, Jen was already up for the morning.

She was getting irritable and desperate.

Tonight, Jen was awake too, but had hit acceptance before it even came time to go to bed, and was doing something in the leather shop room as of the last time Clara got up and paced.

She tossed the blanket off of her, and onto at least one cat, and got up again, went to find her.

There were a lot of things Jen did for her when she couldn’t sleep. Pet her hair and whisper soothing words. Make her come until she passed out. Sing her a simple melody and threaten to kill her if she told anyone she did. _Insomnia beatings_ weren’t uncommon on the rare occasion when both of them were plagued at the same time.

But those options had all failed within the last twenty-four hours. She suspected there was an option five that might not have been used, and was losing the tact to not ask.

So she found Jen relatively where she’d seen her last, now attempting to disentangle Dr. Fluffypants Fuzztail from the whip she’d been braiding, or maybe the roll of string that usually went into making crackers that had fallen off the end of the table. Lord von Whiskeridoo napped in a half assembled shipping box on the floor, which already had a label stuck to the outside and a small bottle of leather conditioner inside. The shredded paper filler had not yet made it into the box, but dotted the floor of the room as usual, a hopeless problem to Clara’s vacuuming. On an out of reach shelf, a few items recently dyed sat to dry. Clara remembered scrubbing some green dye out of the very distressed Dr.’s tail last time they had thought they could just “keep an eye” on drying items.

Jen set the cat on the floor. “Hey, sweetie. What’s up?”

Clara shrugged. “Still can’t sleep.” Stepped around a few supply piles and nestled herself against her side.

Jen slipped one arm around her and squeezed. “I know. Me either.” She rubbed at her face with her other hand, at irritated eyes. “But there is a bright side.” She indicated the drying leather sheets. “I think I finally got the right dye ratios for the teal.”

“Pretty,” said Clara.

“And I think I was getting the hang of this pattern when I was… interrupted.” Jen looked at the plait in progress, then at the Dr.

“If only I could accomplish things when I can’t sleep,” said Clara.

“Are you out of sync with Ezri?”

“Seems so. Not texting back, at least.” Far more frequently than she was awake at three in the morning with Jen, it seemed that Clara’s worst bouts of insomnia happened at the same time as Ezri’s, the _syncing_ a running gag. Though Ezri, like Jen, was more productive about it. But she was quiet tonight.

“Mm.”

“I just want to sleep.” Clara buried her face in Jen’s shoulder.

“I know.”

Clara had always appreciated Jen’s tendency to simply say _I know_ when she expressed pain or distress or exhaustion or fear or anything along those lines, that Jen didn’t immediately try to fix it or apologize or reassure her, just listened until Clara asked her for one of those things, if she did. Tonight, though, she was making one last attempt to subtly bait her into a form of help that was tricky, in multiple ways, to ask for, and it wasn’t working. “Is there anything…” Too long of a trail off.

“Mm?”

“I know there’s… something you do… that makes me… settle down. Lull. Sedate. Whatever word you’d use.” She felt Jen tense a little, but feeling brave, or desperate, she continued. “I don’t know exactly what it does, or what it is, and I’m sure it’s not perfect, but I know there’s… something.”

Jen nodded, pressed a kiss to the side of her head. Was quiet for a moment, then said, “Come to bed.” Led her there by the hand, tucked her in under the blankets and sat at her side, pulled Clara’s head into her lap and pet her hair, talked absently about what she’d been working on and the day and insomnia. Dr. Fluffypants Fuzztail, losing interest in the leather workshop as Jen wasn’t there, settled against Clara’s leg, the Marquis de Whiskerton snoring under her arm. Clara was starting to drift off. “Looks like it’s about the pets’ bedtime,” Jen said fondly, and shifted, kissed her forehead. “You’re my favorite,” she said, lips still close to Clara’s skin. “Don’t tell Fluffy.”

Clara smiled sleepily, made a contented sound. “You know Hounds is your favorite,” she slurred. She did seem to have managed to mostly doze, and without noticing that Jen’s hand had quickly settled at the scruff of her neck, slipped under her collar, that it frequently did when she was… lulled. Sedated.

“It’s you. I promise.” One more kiss, and Jen slipped back out of the bed, shut the door quietly behind her so as not to wake anyone up.


	23. You Have Us: Ezri, Backstory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a request.

“Well,” said Jen, as they pulled out of Ezri’s driveway, because one of them had to say something.

“Well,” said Clara, equally uncomfortably. “She’s… fine?” The question mark was heavy. The _fine_ unenthusiastic. The hesitation, the silence saying something else.

The _she_ in question was Diane, the s-type Ezri had met at a recent munch and quickly become infatuated with.

“She’s…” Jen trailed off.

“Well,” said Clara again.

It wasn’t that Diane had done anything _wrong_ when introduced to them. But something about her made Clara ill at ease.

Perhaps it was just that she wanted too much of this girl who’d known Ezri for all of a week. She really, really wanted to like Diane. She did. The idea of not liking Ezri’s first partner after herself made her squirm. But she just… didn’t. She knew that she couldn’t shake this girl down and demand she commit to making Ezri happy for the rest of her life and somehow prove it, but God, she wanted to.

“The whole conversation was just… empty. She just seemed to keep… reflecting any chance for more straight back at us,” said Clara.

“I just worry the mirror’s hiding something. Y’know?”

“That she has no personality because she’s just trying to blend in? Not make us think about her too hard? Give us something not to like and bitch to Ezri about?”

“All that.”

“—Well, what do you think?” Ezri was eager and on speaker a few hours later.

“Well, it’s hard to get a strong impression from one meeting…” Jen started.

“Oh, come on.” Understandably disbelieving. It wasn’t like any of them usually shied away from opinions.

“She seems fine,” Clara said quickly, for once losing the heart to offer much that was negative.

“But?” Wanting more than that. Suspicious.

They looked at each other, and at the phone.

“We just worry about you,” said Clara. “You know that.”

“I don’t need you two to worry about me. Did you not like her?”

“It’s just hard to trust someone with you so fast, darling~” Jen said lightly.

“So you didn’t.”

Quiet.

“Why?”

“She didn’t do anything wrong,” Jen said. “I’m just not sure she did anything _right,_ either.”

“What did you want her to do?”

“I don’t know.”

Quiet. “I’ll call you later. I love you both.”

“We love you, too,” Jen said.

Ezri hung up.

Neither of them managed to like Diane any better over the following weeks. In fact, their suspicions grew worse. One frustrating midnight phone call got accusatory. “Have you considered… maybe you’re jealous?” Ezri asked Clara.

“I wish it was that. I do.”

“Do you really feel nothing? In that regard?” Wounded.

“What do you want?” Clara asked, frustrated, but there was no real malice in it. “You want me to like Diane. You want me to be jealous. You don’t want me to worry, but you acted like you were still my safe call for months after I got married. Of course I fucking worry. Do I not get to? Do I not get to be protective? No, I’m not jealous. Do I feel something? Of course I fucking feel something. Just like you felt _something._ And I know you getting a slave would change… things. But it’s what you always wanted. I was ready for that. It was always going to be that way, in the end. I just… think this might not be it.”

“You get to worry,” Ezri relented. “And you’re entitled to your emotions. But I’ve never wanted you to be unhappy.”

“I don’t want you to be unhappy, either. Don’t you see that? I know you’re happy with her right now. And I’m happy, that you’re happy. But… I just worry it’ll be worse if it… doesn’t work out.”

“I think, you’re adding up a lot of little signs into something much bigger than the sum of them.”

“Maybe. I hope I am.”

Ezri’s next conversation with Jen didn’t end so calmly. Jen gave her all of the evidence again. That over the last few weeks with Diane, Ezri just kept relenting on a number of things that were important to her. That no matter how cute and submissive Diane looked kneeling on the floor and giggling shyly, she seemed to just keep getting her way.

At first it was the labels of their relationship. Diane preferred _property_ over _slave_ —a distinction that had always mattered to Ezri. That they had lightly debated and discussed again and again over the years. Ezri felt that _slave_ indicated animation in the most basic sense, hard work, usefulness, service. _Property_ had always felt too inanimate to her. To be property was a status, to be a slave was actionable. Property was acted upon helplessly. Property’s value was as intrinsic as an object’s. Slaves, to their Owner’s will, acted, value based on the service they provided. It wasn’t major, but it was jarring to hear that label used as the one they’d eventually go for, from Ezri. Jen, carefully, had always used a bit of both—but slave as the default. And Ezri didn’t have a problem with the word as a secondary, also technically true label, but it had never been the first one off her tongue, either. Diane seemed to have gotten in her head about it, emphasizing the political connotations it was easy to get in Ezri’s head with, and that it matched _Owner_ slightly more neatly, Ezri’s preferred term just because it was gender neutral, lacking the high femme connotations of _Mistress_ or the Leather associations of the female _Master_. Diane didn’t seem interested in the hard work connotation, either, in Jen’s opinion.

(Later, in a relatively early conversation, Jen noted that Lalia had always liked slave better for many of the same reasons. And, her and Clara had taken to her instantly. Jen had advised they sign the Ownership contract as soon as possible, even before they’d ever signed their consideration one, though it was Ezri who especially insisted on due process this time.)

Then it was tiny protocol changes. Ezri’s preferred kneeling position for slaves—property—had always been sitting back on their heels, knees apart, back straight, hands palm up at their upper thighs. Diane had wheedled her way into having her hands clasped behind her back instead. She posited that hands empty, palm up on the thighs—usually a symbol of offering, service or obedience or submission or whatever the preferred word was, in the BDSM world—seemed more like asking for something than offering it, given that she had nothing physical to offer. Oh, it made sense for when she _was_ offering something physical, she’d said with a smile, but when she wasn’t? Perhaps she could keep her hands behind her. Out of sight, out of mind, like property was supposed to be much of the time. Besides, Ezri’s normal position was associated with Goreans, which she wasn’t; wasn’t she tired of explaining that? (Jen had seen perhaps all of _two_ people ask or assume over the years.)

What was funnier was that she actually agreed with Diane’s take on the empty, palm up position, and had always preferred hands facing down, which admittedly looked a little casual on its own for when the position was in use, so she had added _wrists crossed_ , a symbol of binding. Still, she generally liked people’s hands where she could see them. What were they hiding, anyway? And her own favorite position had the legs together in a more traditional religious fashion. But Ezri had never seen it that way, preferring the vulnerability—and practical access—of legs open, and the offering of the palms up. For her to relent now, was strange. And so it had gone with a multitude of protocols, services, other things. (Later, neither of them ever heard of Lalia arguing any of these things, and she took on a lot more since Ezri had figured out she wanted the majordomo role too, by then.)

Diane had gotten it in Ezri’s head that while uniforms were a fine form of control, they limited her ability to provide the “service” of basically being arm candy, of getting creative with hair, makeup, clothes. Ezri still denied that it was much of a _service_ but had slowly been persuaded towards outfit approval, and occasionally picking them herself, rather than setting a uniform. Because Diane _just wanted to reflect well on her._ (Later, Lalia confessed to Clara that sometimes she wished Ezri would just choose her hairstyle for her more frequently, the one area Ezri usually allowed her leeway, though she did occasionally mandate something in particular.)

By the time this oh so gentle and submissive nudging and persuading and just looking out for Ezri’s interests and public standing as an Owner got around to financials, Jen’d had enough of trying to phrase it to Ezri any more gently. (Later, while she felt a little bad for Lalia’s obvious guilt complexes around money and the housewife factor, she thought that at least her heart was in the right place.)

The phone call devolved into a shouting match, one of their typical spats—more Jen shouting than Ezri, who didn’t talk to either of them for days. Which, for them, was a long time. Clara resented that she’d been included in this silent treatment, though she knew Ezri knew it was easy for Jen to grab her phone.

Ezri had yet to answer her own phone when she showed up on their doorstep. It was Jen who answered, observed the slightly defeated look and heard the, “You were right,” before Ezri burst into tears against her shoulder.

“Oh, sweetheart.” She embraced her tightly and tried to get the door closed behind her before a cat bolted. _You were right_ had never been less satisfying a conclusion. Thinking sunlight might be good, she beckoned Ezri into the backyard and sat on the dusty bench swing with her and rocked them slightly while Ezri laid her head in her lap and cried, Jen’s fingers in her hair, saying, “I know. I know. Shh.”

Ezri confessed every doubt she’d had over the last several weeks, the ones she’d refused to voice once she knew Jen and Clara were suspicious, defensive and hopeful and deeply in denial. Apparently Diane had tried to wheedle her way out of a punishment last night—she’d evaded every one so far, presenting just the right kind of logic Ezri was vulnerable to—but hadn’t done as good a job of it, and went clearly on the defensive when verbally cornered, started to more outright refuse. And Ezri realized what had been behind every little change she’d made in the last weeks. Whatever it was Diane wanted. There was not a submissive bone in her body, just the act of one in the name of getting exactly the particular illusion of a dynamic she wanted.

Clara stepped onto the patio, door creaking. Jen shook her head at her sadly. Clara found a place on the edge of the swing in one of the angles left by the way Ezri had curled up, rubbed her back.

“I was so fucking stupid,” Ezri said into Jen’s lap.

“No, you were just well manipulated,” Jen told her. “Because there’s so much _good_ in you, you try to see the good in other people. Even when it’s not there.”

“I fell for it. All of it. What the fuck am I doing, claiming I know anything about submission. Who would want to be owned by someone who can’t tell the fucking difference between a slave and a con artist?”

“Hey,” Clara said, brushing a few strands of hair out of Ezri’s face, though she didn’t look up. “Someone’ll be so lucky to be owned by you one day. And maybe today’s not that day. But you’re not stupid. And besides, you have us.”

“To tell me when I _am_ stupid?”

“You have us. Period.”

“End of story,” Jen added dryly.

“Well,” said Clara, “hopefully not quite.”


	24. Exchange: Ezri/Lalia, Chapters 17-18 (Book 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a request.

The guidelines laid out, the first night of evening inspection rather than check in was deemed to be immune from correction, errors granted as accident, one night to check any missing habits. Ezri admitted that if they’d had more time, she probably would have granted a lot more than one night, perhaps up to a week, as she had let many things be a matter of only reminder at first, but they didn’t have that time now, TrainingMax looming, and Lalia assured her that she would adjust quickly.

Still, she was nervous going in to the first one, and caught several little things on even her own more critical check. And Ezri did find still find a few, tiny things—uniform, one shirt cuff accidentally left unbuttoned (after Lalia had rolled up her sleeves to do the dishes), a bathroom trash bin she’d forgotten to put a new bag in after taking out the old one, similar things. But her report, all major tasks, and protocol throughout were deemed more than acceptable.

It really wasn’t that big a deal—Ezri offered ample praise for what had gone well, and only note of, not reprimand for, what hadn’t—but when it was done, Lalia still found it hard to calm her nerves. Perhaps it was remnants of the nerves going into it, being generally nervous about TrainingMax and absorbing some of Ezri’s own emotions, or just having an anxiety disorder, but apologizing, fixing the new noted items and making special note to check on them tomorrow felt lacking.

It was a strange kind of limbo, to know that she’d failed at a few things that were not a problem today, but would be tomorrow—without being able to skip through to the time she’d know how it went then. But at least she was starting to see exactly where the errors were, not just perceiving that they might be lurking.

But Ezri reassured her. “Trust me, sweetheart, you were better off than many graduated entry trainees when you walked in the door.”

“Why?”

“Attention to detail. Anticipation. You can teach those things case by case, but you can’t teach the general dedication to it.”

Quiet. “How do I stop feeling bad about it?”

“You apologize, you fix it. You did that. You do better tomorrow.”

“And until then?”

“You remember that it’s a learning process. You’re not learning anything if you don’t make mistakes or miss things and then fix them. You’re just doing something you already know at that point. And you remember that no matter how it goes tomorrow.”

The next night saw far fewer, but existent errors—none the same as the night before; those, Lalia had carefully checked. The cane hurt but she far preferred the sharp pain to the mental fog of the night before, took it stoically outwardly but felt it full force.

She found herself something like looking forward to the next night’s inspection, reviewing notes she’d made—another chance at getting it right. Realized that once again, the guilt had stuck with her, surviving correction. That made her even more uneasy. Last night she had told herself as she fell asleep that it was the lack of proper correction that let her guilt brew; tonight, she had no such excuses.

Ezri found her in the bedroom, apparently looking as uneasy as she felt. “Come here.” She gestured to the floor at her feet and Lalia crawled over from where she had been on top of her blanket, finding her usual kneeling position with her nightgown pooling around her thighs, a little farther from Ezri than she might have normally. With something like guilt still gnawing at her, she kept the very slight distance. Partly in anticipation of further reprimand, partly knowing that it wasn’t coming, but feeling the need to leave space for it.

Ezri pet her hair, noticed that she stiffened a little, asked, “How are you?”

Lalia bit her lip. She _was_ fine; she wasn’t in acute distress, just a bit…

The feeling wasn’t even directly negative as much as it was distinctly open to going that direction. Painfully neutral. Fragile. Vulnerable. She wasn’t wallowing in the guilt but aware she could be in a heartbeat. Aware that she was eager to further make up for it, eager to apologize again, eager to fix it, eager for another chance to get it right, eager to take correction properly and quietly and not bother Ezri with any further feelings from it. She’d gotten her discipline; she’d gotten her pat on the head for taking it well, gotten her forgiveness. She wasn’t entitled to more. She was not, technically, even entitled to that.

“You know,” said Ezri, when Lalia was starting to also become very aware of the fact she had yet to answer, “there are a lot of people who think discipline is a bad thing that should never happen. I’ve never thought of it that way. Obviously I don’t want to do it too much—that means it’s not having the right effect. And I understand that you have to be careful with it—make sure you’re on the same page, don’t do it in anger, don’t blur it with play, be consistent. And it shouldn’t really be used as a deterrent. I don’t want you to have the thought in your mind, ‘I have to do Thing, because otherwise I’ll be punished,’ or, ‘I can’t do Thing, because I’ll be punished.’ I want you to _want_ certain things, right? To serve, to obey?”

Small nod. The, “ _Yes, ma’am_ ,” forming on her lips, but Ezri continued before she voiced it.

“I can’t expect you to like every task every time, every rule every time, but when you do it anyway, it should be on that principle—that you want to serve, you want to please—not because of what I’ll do to you if you don’t. And if you cross that line, it’s the guilt of violating those principles that’s the real deterrent from doing it again. Not punishment. I know that if I never disciplined you, your behavior wouldn’t change much. So why do I do it? Hmm?”

Lalia opened her mouth to speak, closed it. Stammered. It was a simple question, but given the stipulations, hard to pin down. “Catharsis?” she tried. She knew that Ezri was getting at something about the guilt here. “Closing the situation off? Knowing when it’s done? And you can move on?”

“… Yes,” said Ezri, “but there’s a trade off. I can ask you for whatever I want, and you’ll give it to me, but my end of the deal is that if you don’t, I correct you. If I’m not willing to hold you accountable for something, I can’t really make you do it. There are other trade offs in M/s, too. Limits. Whether or not you enforce them, you do _have_ limits—all people do—and without your say, it becomes my job to notice them, compensate, act within them, expand them, accept the consequences, whatever it may be. If you wanted limits, it would be your job to say, ‘You can’t chop my arm off; that’s a hard limit,’ and as you don’t, it is my responsibility to say, ‘No, I won’t chop your arm off,’ even if you asked, because disabling you just to exercise the power to do so is a trade off that _I’m_ not willing to make. It’s a power _exchange._ There’s nothing lost in the middle. Every bit of power you give up, I have to pick up. It has to balance. It doesn’t go anywhere.”

Yes, she understood that equation. Still, what were they getting at here? She frowned.

“As a less extreme, if I want to whip you, and you’re not in a good place to take it, and you have no power to say no—a responsibility to _communicate_ , but not to enforce a limit—then it is ultimately _my_ responsibility to listen to what you have to say, evaluate your state, do it and provide extra aftercare, reduce what I’m going to do, skip it, delay it, accept you might not be in a good place today, train you to be in a better place for it in the future, whatnot. Both of us have a job here.”

Certainly, by asking for as much as she did, Ezri put herself in more of a trainer and disciplinarian role than many Owners did. But she was more than willing to accept the trade offs. And Lalia was eager to take up the challenge.

“And I completely acknowledge that you have the much harder job. You might not envy mine, but objectively, you put in much more time, energy, skills, emotional labor. I can wave my hand to tell you to kneel on the floor, but you’re the one spending hours in front of a mirror to get it right when I do. And I have to decide what the position is, and what the hand signal is, and what happens if you don’t do it, and teach you, and decide if it’s worth it to have you do it if you injured your leg—but that’s not the same level.”

This was true. She’d always liked that Ezri _thought_ about her own position in the way Lalia thought through her own, philosophically; but they could not pretend it required the same things of them.

“So as much as I have trade offs, you have more. But one of the things you do get back is accountability. That you’re not doing it alone. That you always have someone to report to, who gets to handle hard decisions, teach you new things, give you new opportunities, look out for your best interests, and, yes, hold you accountable and correct you when you stray, because that’s important for you. For both of us. That there’s a line. But that happens because this is an _exchange_. I do it only because I recognize all of the effort that you put in first. I wouldn’t do it if you hadn’t committed yourself to that, because it wouldn’t get us anywhere if you didn’t put in the effort. So I re-recognize what you put in first, and what you will do in the future, that you care enough to learn, that you care enough that the actual punishment is what you do to yourself, every time I hold up my end of the deal by doing it. It is always an acknowledgement, a reminder, that you’re worth it, and to refocus you on those efforts, not to inflict more guilt. I can’t truly fix anything by caning you if you don’t feel motivated to change without it. Not in a dynamic like this. And it’s part of the learning process, not a sign that the process is broken. And you are entitled to your emotions, but I want you to understand that logically at least.”

Lalia nodded, finally nuzzled into where Ezri was now stroking her cheek, kissed her hand. “I understand.”

“Good.”

In the coming days, she learned quickly, which gave her more confidence that the new evening routine _was_ nudging her onto the right path, sharpening her attention, improving her skills, not just pointing out what she was helplessly doing wrong. She came to like it, a point of submissive focus, of accountability, of learning opportunities. Ezri, too, enjoyed the clarity of the direct results, each day closer to getting exactly what she wanted, and later, getting it often even when she checked critically. TrainingMax looming or not, they both settled into the routine happily.

**Author's Note:**

> Want to take the survey and share your opinions about this series? Find the survey [here](https://forms.gle/h2pho3vavpzNT1jr5).
> 
> Want a physical copy or ebook? Find Book One and The First IGY Companion on [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Hannah-The-Scribe/e/B08NPX9Q4L). Also, [Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55955242-i-ll-give-you-everything-i-am). Also find Book One on [Barnes and Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ill-give-you-everything-i-am-hannah-the-scribe/1138275367). 
> 
> Want fun extras like fonts and audio? Check [here](https://hannahthescribe.com/igy/).
> 
> Want more, and have something in mind? Request short stories for this series [here](https://hannahthescribe.com/igy-requests/).
> 
> Want more? Find the whole series on [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867054) along with my [other works](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034871).
> 
> Want the reality? Read my BDSM nonfiction on [Service Slave Secrets](http://www.serviceslavesecrets.com/) or [FetLife](https://fetlife.com/users/7113554/posts/5648128).
> 
> Want a taste of the trainee life? Find my BDSM education classes [here](https://serviceslavesecrets.com/events/).


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